


Gotta' Catch 'em AAAAAAAALLLLLLLL!!!!!!!!

by Kereth_Midknight



Category: Homestuck, Pocket Monsters | Pokemon (Main Video Game Series), Pocket Monsters | Pokemon - All Media Types
Genre: Alternate Universe, Crossover, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-02-05
Updated: 2021-02-14
Packaged: 2021-03-17 13:48:40
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 10
Words: 32,970
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29226492
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Kereth_Midknight/pseuds/Kereth_Midknight
Summary: Vriska Serket always dreamed of being a pokemon trainer, but life just seemed to have other plans. A grown troll, she has now a successful career, plentiful hobbies and a more-than-healthy reputation in Guilds of Grubcraft. She's become kind of a big deal, in other words, and has a lot of irons in the fire. All of the irons, in fact. All of them.But with the appearance of a strange, hornless, troll-like larval creature and the intervention of the infamous Team Felt, her comfortable life is about to get turned upside down. Will she be able to finally catch her 8ig 8r8k, or will her luck finally run out?
Kudos: 6





	1. Welcome to the World of Pokemon. Please enter your password.

**Author's Note:**

> The following notes are not necessary to enjoy the story but may serve as a helpful clarification for interpreting details relative to the respective canons:
> 
> This is a pokemon/homestuck alternate universe crossover. The world is largely based on the World of Pokemon, with minimal influences from Alternia, while the characters are mostly Alternian. While there is no grotesque violence or sexual content, this work takes a more serious look at the Pokemon World, including more realistic social and economic structures and the possibility of serious injury and death, or worse, for pokemon and trainers alike. Pokedex data and game mechanics are held to fairly strictly, with in-universe explanations where needed. Despite the troll characters, however, this story does not contain any profanity. It's still a pokemon story, after all.
> 
> The story has already been written in its entirety. Posts will be made every few days as revisions are finalized, probably in 8-10 installments. Current length in draft form is just over 33,000 words.
> 
> EDIT: The story is now fully reviewed and posted. It's divided into 10 sections here, with a length cut down to just over 32k words, rather than just over 33k, due to lots of careful trimming of the language and the omission of some smaller sections that were redundant in the draft or didn't add to the plot.

It had all come down to this. All her trials and training. Everything leading to this final confrontation.

And now he wouldn't shut up.

“You think you're all that?!” Vriska sneered at her opponent. “P8thetic! You have no idea what I've 8een through to get here! If you wanted to stop me, you should have done it a long time ago!”

“No idea? To the contrary, my dear troll, I think you'll find I know exactly what you've been through, every step of the way. After all, I'm the one who put you through it, am I not?”

“That was your mist8ke!” Vriska said, “You think you manipulated me? You think you were pulling the strings? Every fly in the we8 is pulling strings! You should have guessed long ago what pulling these threads would 8ring you!”

“Really now, your determination is admirable, but you've already fulfilled your purpose when you battled Slick. My master’s plan is about to come to fruition, and anything you do now is largely irrelevant. It's over, Vriska. Go home.”

“Don't 8et your life,” Vriska said. She reached around behind her back, withdrawing a ball from the stash inside her coat.

“Really?” her opponent scoffed, “A pokemon battle? I think you have entirely forgotten who it is that you're dealing with.”

“One of us has,” Vriska said.

Her opponent laughed.

“Very well, very well,” he said, “I'll entertain your little fantasy, if only because it will help pass the time until the end.” He held a hand out, and a pokeball appeared out of thin air. “I should warn you, however: You will find that when it comes to pokemon battles, I am simply the best there is.”

“Less talk,” Vriska said, gritting her teeth at his mockery: “Ariados, I choose you!”

8 8 8 8 8 8 8 8

_“_ _Pi- Pi- Pi-Pikachu! Pi! Pi! Pi-ka-chu! Pi- Pi-_ _Pi-_ _Pikachu! Pi! Pi! Pi-ka-”_

Vriska rolled over and fumbled for her alarm. The blaring noise was muffled beneath the thick clutter of her nightstand, but long use of that alarm tone had caused it to become the most irritating noise imaginable. Even barely audible, that sound would wake her, and she would be unable to think calmly or coherently until it had been silenced. She shoved all the odds and ends aside, trying to dig it out.

Dirty laundry fell off to one side, and a half-empty drink bottle fell off the other. A pile of character sheets from her numerous roleplaying campaigns were sent scattering across the floor. A bowling ball (gr8, why did she even _have_ a bowling ball?) went rolling off the front, landing amidst the clutter on the ground.

_Crash!_

Her fingers found the alarm and slapped the off button. She sighed.

That crash. . . she hoped nothing had been broken. She- W8.

She sat bolt upright. Where was Spinar8k?! She glanced hastily toward her lone pokemon's normal sleeping place and her heart pounded with relief. The small spider pokemon was sleeping undisturbed in one of the cobwebs strung across the corners of her ceiling. That was good. Her spinarak had been known to wait at the side of her bed for her to wake up and feed it in the mornings, and for the briefest instant, Vriska had been afraid that-

Well. No harm done, right? Of course, there were other things that could have been broken. She climbed out of bed and started digging through the mess to assess the damages. Knowing her luck, she probably broke another-

The bowling ball rolled aside. Yep. Another broken pokeball. That was bad luck, she'd heard. And she kept on breaking them. That meant today was going to be rough again.

Just can't catch a 8r8k!

She tossed the shattered thing aside. She didn't even know why she kept so many around. She guessed she thought it might be nice to become a real pokemon trainer at some point, go on a journey and all that. She never had the time though. She had too many irons in the fire. Work kept her busy, of course, and then there were all her hobbies. She only had one pokemon, a spinarak named Spinar8k, and she hadn't even really taken the time to train her much yet. One of these days, though, they'd do a little training, get into shape, maybe become something a little less embarrassing. It was scary though. She didn't want to do anything she couldn't be the best at, and if she started really working at pokemon training, would she have the time she needed to become the gr8est? She was afraid even to admit to people how much she’d studied and learned about pokemon training. As long as she was “not a trainer,” nobody would judge how good of a trainer she was, but the moment she became a pokemon trainer in people’s eyes, she’d also be identified as a weak one.

She stared out the window of her small apartment, looking into the darkness beyond, pondering over maybe-somedays and might-have-beens.

W8. Why was it dark?

Vriska checked her clock. 4AM. That made no sense. Why would her alarm be set to go off so early? She didn't have work for another-

Oh! Right. Clan meeting. Vriska rubbed her seven-pupiled eye with the heel of one hand. She had to check in on her Guilds of Grubcraft account to make sure everyone was getting ready on schedule for tonight's raid. Raid requirements this time called for a unique item only obtainable via a special, twenty-hour side quest. If not every member of her clan had one by the time they were ready to move, the whole raid was in jeopardy. Her own character had been prepared since yesterday, with over a dozen spares, thanks to a quick sale from a farming bot and some clever duping, and she'd gladly distribute the extras, but not everyone in her clan was likely to accept such generosity.

Vriska was a winner, and that meant she did what winners do, and what winners did was cheat. Someday the rest of her clan would figure that out, and they'd all thank her for being such a shining example of the true path. In the meantime, she had to keep some things on the sly.

She yawned and pulled her laptop out of a stack of gamer magazines nearby. Guilds of Grubcraft was another, very large reason why she never had any time to train her spinarak, she supposed. She really ought to quit. She ought to, but addiction was a powerful thing.

She started up the game. Still three hours left before work time.

8 8 8 8 8 8 8 8

The wind rustled over stone.

8 8 8 8 8 8 8 8

grimAuxiliatrix [GA] began trolling arachnidsGrip [AG]

GA: You Are Out In The Transport Cubicle Retainment Area Right Now

GA: Are You Not

AG: Whaaaaaaaat.

AG: No.

AG: Why would you ever think something like that?

GA: Because The Office Day Will Begin Shortly

GA: And I Have Noticed You Are Always Late

AG: Ah, yeah, you caught me, I'm totally l8. 8usting my chops trying to get over there still! Why would you think I was in the parking lot?

GA: Because You Are Always Late

GA: If It Were Something Infrequent Or I Guess Irregular I Would Not Question It

GA: But You Are Very Reliably Late

AG: So I have 8ad personal ha8its???????? Traffic is is just 8ad along my route, okay? I can't help it if I'm always l8!

AG: Why is it any of your 8usiness anyway?

GA: I Am Not Accusing You Of Bad Personal Practices

GA: At Least Not In Terms Of What Might Be Called Slothfulness

GA: But You Have A Bad Habit And It Is Why I Think You Are Waiting In The Transport Cubicle Retainment Area Right Now

GA: Also Phione Can See Your Transport Cubicle Out Of The Office Window

AG: Argh! Man! So 8urned!!!!!!!! Why would you even have it check on something like that?

AG: You have such a cool pokemon, the coolest of anyone I know. Why would you w8ste its talents on something like spying on people????????

AG: This sounds suspiciously like some8ody has gone 8ack to her meddling.

GA: I Would Not Call It Meddling

GA: It Is Just A Polite Question

AG: Sure, sure.

AG: * cough * Meddling * cough *

GA: Have I Not

GA: Kept My Promised Silence About Certain Activities That Might Be Considered

GA: By Certain Persons Of Import About The Company

GA: To Be An Abuse Of Position By Certain Other Persons In Their Employ

AG: Awwwwwwww maaaaaaaan…….. ::::(

AG: Why would you have to go and 8ring that up????????

AG: I thought we had put this all 8ehind us!

GA: I Do Not Mean To Reintroduce Old Rivalries Just To Clarify That My Friendship On This Matter Is Not In Question

GA: I Ask Only In Your Best Interests

AG: Aww, man! You're right :::( My 8ad. I keep 8lowing stuff out of proportion all the time. I'm such a 8ad friend! The 8addest friend! A 8ad 8ad losery 8ad loser friend. How can I make it up to you?

GA: I Am Not Calling Your Friendship Into Question Either

GA: Nor Am I Trying To Pry Into Your Business

GA: Your Tardiness Is Only My Business Because In Addition To Concern As A Friend

GA: I Frequently Wait For Your Latest Patch Security Reports In The Morning Before I Can Begin To Prepare The Porygons

GA: And While I Wait I Often Have Reason To Watch The Clock And To Wonder When You Will Finally Arrive

AG: . . . . . . . .

GA: I Am Just Saying

GA: Would It Hurt You To Be Eight Minutes Early Some Days Instead Of Eight Minutes Late All The Time

GA: Especially If You Are Just Going To Wait Outside The Building Anyway

AG: ::::(

8 8 8 8 8 8 8 8

Vriska slammed the vehicle door behind herself, grumbling as she dragged her feet up the walk to main doors of the office building. Some trolls just had no respect for personal boundaries. Was eight minutes really so long to w8???????? The number eight was kinda' her thing, but was Kanaya Maryam willing to respect that? Noooooooo. She just fussed and meddled and made a huge stinkin' deal out of everything. Always fussing and meddling. What's her deal?

You wouldn't catch Vriska complaining about Kanaya's whole ( _ugh_ _)_ “fashion” thing. At least Vriska had a little class.

Vriska paused in front of the main doors, checking her watch. Nine minutes early. She could stall here for a minute more. She bent down to pretend to tie her shoelaces. Not that she ever actually tied them, she was too busy for stuff like that, but pretending would work in her favor today.

The security guard was eyeing her. He was a short, shouty little troll, and although Vriska had never learned his name, it was hard not to recognize him. The man could turn the faintest security violation around the premises into the most adorable tirade. He was a total n00b, but after a few of his scenes, he became a n00b you remembered.

Her watch ticked a minute forward. Hopping to her feet, Vriska strolled inside.

She made it a fast stroll, as she passed the sliding double doors and entered the main lobby. She had to. Being exactly eight minutes early didn't matter unless people knew you were eight minutes early. She had to be seen, but more importantly, she had to be seen by as many trolls as possible while she was still eight minutes early. Once the clock changed again, and she was seven minutes early instead, there wouldn't be much of a point.

“Sorry! Sorry!” she said, rushing across the lobby amidst raised eyebrows. The elevator doors came open right as she reached them, but she didn't go inside, just waved to the trolls getting out, offering another apology. She took the stairs instead. It was faster, and it gave her more of a chance to be seen by the trolls on the second floor as she went by. Still eight minutes early. She picked up her pace, mounting the steps with all speed.

You know, it made a lot more sense running like this when she was eight minutes l8 than it did when she was eight minutes early. Curse Kanaya and her meddling! She probably looked like a chump to everyone she was passing, but she couldn't stop now. She was still eight minutes early! She turned on a landing and headed up another flight of stairs. Her cubicle was on the third floor. She could get there in time. She'd practiced this.

She rounded the final set of steps and rushed the door. It opened as she was getting there. A fellow office worker started coming through, but she bashed him aside, sending him staggering away behind her. She sailed through the door to the sound of a repeated “clunk clunk clunk” from the stairwell behind her. Poor sap must've fallen down the steps. What a clutz!

She tried to remember the man's name, in case this incident came up l8r. Started with a T. Ta-something. Oh well. It was his own fault for not watching where he was going anyway. Somebody should have warned him about stairs.

Vriska's cubicle was on the far side of the floor, just how she liked it. She had a corner cubicle all to herself, with windows on two sides. It was one of the best seats on the floor. She didn't mean to brag or anything, but she was kinda' a big deal. As the head of information security here at the Guilds of Grubcraft offices, Vriska was the only thing that stood between those no-good dirty hackers and the sanctity of their finely-honed gaming experience. She was hot stuff, and trolls around here knew that.

A messenger pidgey flitted by overhead, carrying an office memo to another cubicle, and Vriska charged through like a star.

“Oh There You Are,” came Kanaya's voice as Vriska dashed by the opening of her cubicle. “I See You Decided To Take My-”

“No time!” Vriska said, out of sheer force of habit, “I'm l8!”

She wasn't really, but Kanaya could w8 anyway. Her idea really had spoiled Vriska's entire entrance this morning. Sure, she kept the integrity of the eight-minute mark on her arrival time, but at what cost? The rest of the routine was pretty much shot. She couldn't loudly apologize to draw attention to herself, the running no longer made any sense, and worst of all, she wasn't flaunting to the rest of the floor how important her position was, by virtue of how much stuff she could get away with and still keep her job.

She was still plotting what forms of nigh-criminal delinquency she might somehow incorporate into her day to make up for this shortcoming, as well as what special tactics she might use to one-up Maryam and reassert her dominance over the floor, when she arrived at last at her cubicle. The clock ticked forward a minute the moment she sat down. The timing was perfect.

She swiveled around to face her compu-

A large sheet of pink paper was sitting on top of her keyboard.

8 8 8 8 8 8 8 8

“What in the gr8 arceus's name is this????????” Vriska demanded, slamming the paper down on her worthless superior's desk. The superior in question, one Equius Zahhak, a disgusting man who looked more like he belonged in an antiperspirant test facility than in a major tech industry job, eyed her severely.

“It is e%actly what it 100ks like,” Equius said. “I have e%plained the situation to President Peixes, and we agreed it was a time for STRONG actions.”

Vriska was livid.

“You can't do this to me!” she screeched, “Whatever it is, I'm not to 8lame! I'm innocent! Did Kanaya rat me out? I should have known it was her. She h8s me! She's always meddling! I 8et that loser who fell down the stairs this morning was in on it, too. They're in cahoots! Cahoots, I tell you!!!!!!!!”

“I assure you I am e%tremely capable of doing this,” said Equius, “and so are you. If you 100k at the End User License Agreement, it e%plicitly states in rather STRONG wording that-”

“No8ody reads that c-!” Vriska caught herself mid-sentence. The EULA? That was for users of the software! It was for people who played the game, not employees! Oh no. There was probably something in there about how trolls who work on the game aren't allowed to have accounts. She hadn't read it, but she'd always assumed it would be. She'd tried to keep her game activity a secret at work, but- Well, Kanaya had found out. She'd found out about Vriska's using her position to glean the best cheats for her own purposes too. Had she told? She must have told. That no good, meddling fussyfangs! That must have been the real reason she wanted Vriska to come in early! She'd promised not to tell. She-

“We do not e%pect that most people read it,” Equius said, “but that does not e%cuse their violating it. The evidence of 100t duplication in this case is STRONG and-”

“D8ping?!” Vriska said, horrified. How much did they know? It was no use denying anything, if they had already learned so much. Still, she couldn't lose her job over this. That just wasn't fair!

“Okay, okay, you got me,” Vriska said, “Gr8. Well done. It must have been really smooth detective work.” Or a blabbermouth. Ugh. “8ut this is still a EULA violation, isn't it? It's not an employee contract violation. You can 8an a character or lock an account over that, 8ut you can't, you know, fire some8ody.”

Equius looked puzzled.

“I am not e%tremely familiar with all the 100ser slang of the gamer classes,” he said, “but I assure you, the agreement e%plains this procedure for character monitoring in some detail. If you'll check down in section 5.3 under. . .”

He went on, but Vriska had stopped listening. This was a nightmare. How had it come to this? If only she'd-

Wait. Hang on.

Character monitoring? Had they caught her by snooping her account? No, snooping accounts was her job, and that of lowly admins who answered to her. Nobody would have snooped her character without her knowing. Unless- She examined the pink slip more closely.

Uh oh. Oh no.

In her haste, she'd spotted the pink slip on her desk and immediately assumed she was being let go. That was what they used pink papers for, you know? “Pink slip” was practically a word for that. She'd never heard of any other forms being this color. It was a matter of tradition. It was- Well, it was _also_ probably something stupid about not offending anyone on the hemospectrum by associating such negative things with their blood color. After all, no one had ever heard of someone with pink blood, so it was safe. There was nothing even close to it, unless you counted the red of Pokemon blood.

But no, she'd gotten it all wrong. She wasn't being fired. Not yet. They hadn't snooped her character at all. Instead, this was possibly something much, much worse.


	2. Invalid Username and/or Password. Please Try Again.

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Convinced of Maryam's treachery now, Vriska attempts to fight back, only to have her efforts seemingly backfire. Now she's stuck with a mystery, a conflict of interest and an unwelcome responsibility.

“Gengar.”

Her opponent flicked his ball forward, announcing his selection of opening pokemon with as much enthusiasm as one politely commenting upon the weather.

The ball opened with a bright flash, disgorging the toxic ghost type pokemon. It looked funny to her trained eye. Maybe the faintest bit more grayish that the usual of its type. She couldn't waste time dwelling on such details.

Vriska's mind raced, analyzing the matchup. Gengar was a poison type as well as a ghost type pokemon, while ariados was a bug type and a poison type. Those types alone made it a pretty fair matchup, but gengar was a strong pokemon species, and there was the possibility of mega evolution, which could make it stronger. Her ariados had been trained to use the psychic attack though. It wasn't very strong, coming from an ariados, but the move being super effective against a poison type like gengar would somewhat compensate for that. She might have the advantage.

Then again, gengar could potentially know a psychic type attack as well. They weren't the most common moves to teach a gengar, but her opponent had been watching her for some time. He'd know she'd lead with ariados and would have chosen a starting pokemon to capitalize on that. Since they were both poison types, psychic would be super effective regardless of who used it. A gengar would, as a rule, be much faster than any ariados, especially if it mega evolved, and it would have the skill with special moves like psychic to make the attack really count. If gengar knew such an attack, ariados might not even have a chance to defend itself. If it didn't, the advantage might still be hers.

Well, there was one easy way to find out.

“Gengar,” her opponent began offhandedly, “use-”

8 8 8 8 8 8 8 8

Vriska backed out of the office, calling vague assurances and agreements over the sound of her boss's continued rambling.

Honestly, she didn't even know how a guy like that got to work in a place like this anyway. It was probably something to do with the obscene degree to which he groveled to the bigshots, if it wasn't out-and-out hemotyping. She honestly felt sorry for his secretary.

Sometimes, she did. Right now, Vriska felt more sorry for herself.

She looked down again at the paper in her hands. There had to be a way out of this. She was still convinced that Kanaya was somehow behind it. Sweet arceus, what was she supposed to _do????????_

Her job was to hunt down and close exploits, stop hackers and fish out security problems in their codebase. She did that job well, even if she did have a tendency to keep the more obscure, harder-to-find exploits active for her own use. Now, though, she had a problem. Somebody, somewhere in the company, had identified an account with “proof-positive evidence of duping” through an “unknown method.” Vriska was being assigned to keep an eye on that account and figure out how this was being accomplished. Punitive action against the account was being suspended until the exact details behind the glitch could be discovered (after all, if they couldn't figure it out on their own, they could just have one of Vriska’s people snoop the player until they did it again). Once they had the information they needed, they'd close up the glitch, ban the account, and everyone could go back to business as usual.

Except that Vriska already knew how the duping was managed: _that was her account!!!!!!!!_

How could Kanaya have done this to her? It had to be Kanaya, of course. There had been no snooping or character monitoring yet, so they had to have learned it from somewhere else. This was just the sort of meddling Vriska should have expected from her. She probably thought it was for Vriska's own good, “as a friend.” Yeah, some friend! Kanaya probably thought the perfect solution to Vriska's “conflict of interest” was to remove the conflict by getting her to freeze her own account and close her best sploitz. Not likely! She'd spent sweeps building up that account! Could she bring herself to just cut ties with her precious game in order to keep her job? Was there even a way to do the opposite, losing her job but saving the account?

Sacrificing one for the other had seemed so easy a minute ago, when it wasn't her choice, but now she was being asked to do the deed herself. That was so unfair. Kanaya had to pay for this. Vriska couldn't just give in that easily. There had to be a way to cheat her way out of this. There had to be a way to do that and to foil whatever other schemes Kanaya had cooking up for her on the side. Revenge would come later. For now, she needed an escape.

But how? H8w????????

“Gotta' catch a 8r8k,” she muttered.

That's when she heard the shouting.

8 8 8 8 8 8 8 8

“L00K, 1 G3T WH4T Y0U'R3 S4Y1NG BUT 1T'S CL34RLY N0T S0M3TH1NG 1 C4N JUST 4RR3ST,” a loud, feminine voice was calling from the lobby, “H4V3 Y0U C0NS1D3R3D THR0W1NG 4 P0K3B4LL?”

“DOES IT FREAKING *LOOK* LIKE A POKEMON TO YOU?”

Vriska rounded the corner to see what the shouting was about today. There was no telling with their security guard. The man would flip out over the slightest detail, from incorrectly parked cars to somebody's improperly displayed id tag, just to give himself an excuse to feel important. Most of the time, it wasn't worth paying attention to, but sometimes-

Oh goodness, Vriska thought, as the scene came into full view. He'd actually called the police.

The officer was doing her best to reason with him over something, but it wasn't immediately apparent to Vriska what that was. The woman was wearing the standard, patently ridiculous uniform assigned to female police officers around here (really, how did she run in that silly blue miniskirt, let alone while wearing those heels) and had somehow managed to park her motorcycle right in the middle of the building's lobby.

“1 D0N'T KN0W WH4T 1T 1S, K4RK4T,” the officer was saying, “BUT 1T CL34RLY 1SN'T 4NY K1ND 0F TR0LL, 4ND TH3 L4W 1S CL34R TH4T 1 C4N 0NLY 4RR3ST *P30PL3*”

“HOW DO YOU KNOW IT'S NOT A PERSON?” the guard yelled, “DO I DETECT A SMIDGEN OF RACISM IN THE MODERN POLICE FORCE? SAY IT ISN'T SO!”

“ARGH! L00K 4T 1T, K4RK4T! 1T H4S N0 H0RNS, 1T H4S P4L3 FL4BBY SK1N, 1T'S R34LLY T1NY 4ND 1T C4N'T T4LK! WHY W0ULD Y0U 3V3R TH1NK 1T W4S S0M3 K1ND 0F P3RS0N?”

The officer gestured to the object of their discussion, and the guard considered it, looking a bit flummoxed. Vriska noticed it for the first time. Amidst the gathered bustle of office workers and their associated pokemon pets and assistants, it had kinda' gotten lost in the crowd. Now that it had been pointed out to her, though, Vriska didn't think she could miss it.

It did look really weird, like something you might get if somebody tried to cross a troll with an igglybuff. I mean, it looked like a troll in the basic shape and all. It had hair and a head and arms and eyes in the right place and all that, but the skin looked soft, there were no horns, and the whole body looked tiny and weak. Even if it was some kind of pokemon, Vriska didn't think she'd want to catch it. It probably had terrible stats, and what kind of moves would it be able to learn? She was willing to bet something that funny looking had a moveset that would make magikarp look versatile, with all the evolutionary prospects of a dunsparce. It was not a pokemon for winners.

Of course, it probably wasn't a pokemon at all. She didn't have to check herself to know. Several members of the crowd had pokedexs handy, and they were all looking at them and shaking their heads. Whatever it was, it wasn't something you'd catch. It was just some kind of mutant freak.

“WELL, WHATEVER IT IS, IT'S TRESPASSING,” the guard finished lamely.

“Actually I Think This Might Be Its Wiggler Form,” Kanaya said, from over Vriska's shoulder.

Vriska cringed slightly. How long had Maryam been standing there?

“W1GGL3R F0RM?” the officer asked, turning her attention to Kanaya. Others craned their heads around as well, curious about this new theory.

“Well I Was Just Thinking,” Kanaya explained, “That As Wigglers We Are Very Small And Defenseless And Cannot Speak And Many Pokemon Species When They First Hatch From Eggs Have Forms That Are Similarly Small And Defenseless Which We Call Wiggler Forms” She gestured at the creature, “This Creature Seems Too Small To Survive Effectively In The Wild So Perhaps It Is Just A Wiggler”

The crowd shifted its attention back to the creature, considering this possible explanation. Vriska barely gave it a glance. Kanaya had snuck up behind her. Was this another part of her scheme? Did she have a hand in planting this creature here? If so, Vriska needed to be on her guard. Kanaya was up to her meddling ways. What was her game? What was she up to here? If Vriska was certain of one thing, it was that there was no way she was letting Kanaya get away with it.

“I Also Do Not Think It Is A Pokemon,” Kanaya added, “Because It Is Wearing Clothes”

Vriska suppressed a snort. Kanaya _would_ find clothing to be a sign of intelligence. Still, she couldn't think of any species of pokemon that had actual, removable clothing. If those were actual clothes, not just like the muscle belt of a machamp or the gown of a gardevoir. . .

“W3LL TH4T S3TTL3S 1T,” the officer declared, “1F 1T 1S 4 P3RS0N, 1T'S 4 M1N0R! TH1S 1SN'T MY R3SP0NS1B1L1TY: C4LL TH3 DR0N3S 0R G0 F1ND 1TS LUSUS”

She threw up her arms and headed back toward her bike.

“WAIT!” the guard yelled, running after her, “IT'S NOT MY JOB EITHER! THE DRONES WON'T TAKE IT IF IT'S NOT A TROLL, AND WHO SAYS THIS THING EVEN HAS A LUSUS?”

“N0T MY PR0BL3M, K4RK4T,” the officer said. She started the ignition on her bike.

“DON’T YOU RUN AWAY FROM ME!” the guard continued. “YOU CAN’T LEAVE ME HERE WITH THIS! STAY HERE! YOU CAN’T-”

The motorcycle's wheels spun into motion, drowning out the rest of the guard's complaints.

“YOU SHOULDN’T EVEN BE DRIVING A MOTORCYCLE, YOU MANIAC!” the guard yelled after her, as the bike roared out of the lobby, barely clearing the automatic doors, “YOU’RE BLIND!”

The guard deflated. He turned back to face the crowd, then eyed the creature.

“WHAT AM I GOING TO DO WITH THIS?” he asked.

“I Suppose I Could Take Care Of It For You,” Kanaya said, “At Least Until We Figure Out Where It Comes From OR What To Do With It.”

“OH SWEET ARCEUS, WOULD YOU?” the guard shouted, relieved. “IF IT'S NOT TOO MUCH TROUBLE.”

“It Would Be Some Trouble,” Kanaya said, “But I'm Sure-”

Oh no she didn't!

“I'll t8ke it!!!!!!!!”

8 8 8 8 8 8 8 8

“Ariados, use protect!” Vriska ordered. There was no time to wait and see what her opponent would do first. Pokemon executed their strikes as fast as they were given orders, so delaying her own command would be the equivalent of ordering her pokemon to do nothing. She could still stall other ways, however. . .

“-nasty plot,” her opponent finished.

Ariados threw up a protective shield, ready to stop any attack, but no assault came. Instead, the gengar focused its power, wiggling its fingers maliciously as its already overlarge grin extended to take up still more of its gigantic face.

Nasty plot? Taking the time to use such a technique would nearly double gengar's offensive power. It was a risk, since an opponent might easily take you out during the time you spent using it, but if you did manage it, the boost it provided would pay for itself very quickly. Her opponent had lucked out. Vriska had wasted a move defending against an attack that had never come. Now the gengar was more dangerous than ever. At least it hadn't mega evolved.

And yet. . .Vriska had never heard of a gengar that could use nasty plot. It wasn't one of the moves that type of pokemon was usually capable of. Perhaps she wasn't the only cheater in the house today.

She didn't have time to figure out how he had done it. Her foe was already calling his next move. Protect became unreliable if used more than one time in a row, and gengar was still going to be faster than ariados. With the extra boost from that nasty plot, it didn't need to know psychic in order to finish her off. She had only one choice.

“Ariados, return!”

8 8 8 8 8 8 8 8

No one had objected, and so the rest of Vriska's day was ruined, possibly the rest of her life if she couldn't figure out how to get rid of the thing.

She'd felt triumphant enough, stepping in the way of Kanaya's attempts to take the creature for her own, and she'd happily turned a cold shoulder to Maryam's skepticism over Vriska's ability to take care of it. The doubt and confusion on the troll woman's face had been so priceless. Didn't see this one coming, did you, Fussyf8ngs????????

But then everyone had walked away, leaving her alone with the weird squishy thing, and Vriska started to wonder if this had been Kanaya's real plan all along.

What was she supposed to do now?

The thing had wrought havoc in her cubicle. (Where else was she supposed to take it? She had work to do!) It had emptied drawers and upturned her waste basket, gotten a pen stuck up its nose and even slobbered on her mouse. Plus, it was starting to smell bad. She was pretty sure it hadn't smelled this bad when she'd first gotten it.

She glared at it. It started chewing on the pink slip.

“Yeah, go ahead and eat it,” Vriska said, “May8e I can pretend they never sent it to me.” She sighed. The thing looked up at her.

“Wh8t????????”

8 8 8 8 8 8 8 8

Vriska had guessed it might be hungry. The sad arcanine eyes said yes, but the way it stared at the bowl she set in front of it said no. She'd even gotten it some candied sugargrubs, fresh and wriggling. The thing looked at them like they were some kind of frightening pests instead of delicious food.

She tried leaving it alone after that, but it still acted hungry.

She offered it berries and pokemon food instead. It gobbled them right down.

Huh. She guessed it really _wasn't_ people. But then, she didn't need anyone to tell her that. She knew what people looked like.

The food quieted it up for a bit, while it ate, and then it slumped over on the floor in the middle of her cubicle to take a nap.

Well, good riddance. She did her best to get some work done anyway, deliberately avoiding the task of investigating her own character for now. She could at least buy herself some time by filibustering. After that. . .

The creature made some kind of adorable gurgling sound while it slept. There was a long trail of drool leading from its mouth, soaking a stack of less-important documents.

She had to admit: it did look kinda' like a wiggler in a weird way.

She hoped the creature would sleep until her work day was over.

She hoped someone would figure out what she was supposed to do with it soon.

Nobody was going to though. It was her problem now, and she didn't even know where to begin.

8 8 8 8 8 8 8 8

It was lining up for a psychic attack. If not, it would be a ghost type attack. Either would have done the trick. Her switch had to be to a creature who would be able to endure either and then fight with an advantage thereafter. For that, a dark type pokemon was the perfect choice, and she had the perfect dark type pokemon.

“You're up, Commodore!”

She flung the ball, and her weavile appeared in a flash of light.

Now she was ready for whatever move he was-

“Focus blast!”

Impossible! He had to have known she would switch to weavile to be using that move! Unless he'd followed the logic of her change decision and predicted she'd try to save her ariados? If she hadn't switched, the move would have been nearly useless against her bug and poison type pokemon, but weavile was both an ice type and a dark type, both of which would vulnerable to the move! Between that, the power of the move, the power of the gengar, and the boost from the nasty plot. . . overkill didn't begin to cover it!

The gengar placed its hands together, concentrating. An enormous ball of charkra built up between its palms, and before anyone had time to react, it had directed the energy as an enormous blast toward her unprepared weavile.

8 8 8 8 8 8 8 8

She ended up taking it home with her. I mean, what else was she going to do? Spinar8k greeted them with confusion as she plowed through the mess to enter the apartment.

“I know, Spinar8k, I know,” she said in answer to the small pokemon's curious gaze, “No, it's not another pokemon, no, I don't know what it is, no, I don't want to talk about how I got it, and NO, I do N8T know why it smells so 8ad.”

She plopped the creature down on a relatively uncluttered spot on the bed and went to go dig in the fridge for something to eat.

There was an almost immediate “fwumph” as the thing rolled sideways off the mattress and into a pile of discarded laundry. She didn't hear it crying or anything though, so it was probably alright. She dug around in the fridge, looking for the grubsauce. She swore she could still smell the foul thing. After all that time carrying it, she-

Vriska stopped and sniffed her hands.

“Oh, gr8!” she said, slamming the fridge. Her hands smelled like it now, too. She stomped over to the sink to wash them off. What was causing that smell? Was it rotting or something? Maybe it used its smell as a defensive mechanism, like a stunky. She hoped that wasn't the case. Her whole apartment would be just as bad as her hands before long. She peeked back into the living room.

It didn't look like a stunky at all, though it definitely smelled like one. It was crawling out of a pile of nearly a dozen identical sets of clothing (Like most trolls, Vriska didn't see the point of having much variety), and. . . was that. . .?

Oh no.

Vriska dashed over and scooped the creature up, holding it at arm's length. Of all the ridiculous, disgusting things-! A wet brown patch was forming on the clothes over its lower back. Whose idea was it to put clothes on an animal like this? If you put pants on a mankey, what do you think would happen when the mankey needed to relieve itself?

A huge mess, that’s what!

This was obviously one of Kanaya's schemes. Vriska was sure of it now. Clothes were her thing, and this scheme centered around improperly placed clothes. Only she would come up with something as ridiculous as this.

She was also sure, more than ever, that this thing was definitely not a person. This was some kind of creature that was meant to relieve itself under a tree, not in a toilet. Putting clothes on it was some sort of twisted joke.

She stripped the clothes off the struggling animal and tossed them into a trash bin nearby, making it the first bit of rubbish in some time that had actually made it into that bin. She set the thing down in the tub, then cleared away everything off the floor, dumping it all in a big pile in the hall. She sprayed the creature off.

You know, it did kinda' look like an aipom that someone had shaved and surgically removed the tail from. Vriska kinda' wondered if maybe this really was a pokemon that someone had horribly abused somehow. Weird. That sorta' thing would be too low even for Kanaya.

She didn't have time to think about it. She had a raid coming up and not long to get ready.

She fetched some bowls and filled them with food and water, then locked them in the bathroom with the weird thing. Messes on the tile floor would be easier to clean, at least until she got the thing house trained (or better yet shipped off somewhere). She swore, the moment she saw purple fur growing in on its body, she was catching it in a pokeball and releasing it into the wild.

She went back to her snack. T-minus two hours until raiding time. She hoped everyone was ready.


	3. Too Many Failed Attempts. Please Wait Five Minutes and Try Again.

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Vriska's life situation takes a turn for the worse, as a clanmate throws her raid preparations into disarray, and Vriska receives a series of unwelcome guests.

. . . but the weavile sidestepped the slow-moving energy blast just in time.

Vriska nearly collapsed with relief. This was the downside of focus blast. It might be a powerful fighting type special attack, but it was only maybe three-fourths accurate. Now the Gengar had missed its strike, and her weavile would be fast enough to get the first blow in for a counterattack! None of the gengar’s special attack boosts would matter if she could drop it in one blow. She just hoped he didn’t read her intentions again and switch out before she struck.

Still, if he did, that would at least clear the effects of the nasty plot. It was a win of some sort either way. She had to take the shot.

“Gengar. Focus blast,” her opponent intoned.

“Commodore, use knock off!”

Sure enough, her weavile was the fastest. It rushed forward, striking a ringing blow against the gengar, one that would deal a considerable amount of dark type damage while also dislodging the opponent’s held item. The latter was irrelevant here, since no gengar would be likely to remain standing after receiving such a blow.

“Su8er effective!” Vriska yelled in triumph as the attack struck home.

The gengar. . . what?

8 8 8 8 8 8 8 8

officerRedglare [OR] began private trolling spinneretMindfang [SM]

OR: 1 UND3RST4ND YOUR3 TH3 ON3 TO T4LK TO 1F 1M M1SS1NG TH3 QU3ST 1T3M B3FOR3 TH1S R41D?

OR: 4NOTH3R CL4N M3MB3R 1ND1C4T3D YOU M1GHT B3 4BL3 TO H3LP M3 OUT

SM: Yes! I knew someone would appreci8 my hard work on this.

SM: You really should have prepared 8etter, 8ut I've got you covered. What are clanm8s for?

OR: CL4NM4T3S 4R3 C3RT41NLY FOR 4 GR34T M4NY TH1NGS

OR: 1 M4Y KNOW SOM3 OTH3RS WHO 4R3 4LSO 1N N33D OF 4SS1ST4NC3

OR: HOW M4NY OF TH3 1T3MS C4N YOU SP4R3?

SM: As many as you need ::::D

SM: 8ut I've got to deliver them personally. It's a rule with me. That way no8ody can take credit for my hard work.

SM: I'm sure you understand. ::::)

OR: B3L13V3 M3 1 H4V3 NO D3S1R3 TO T4K3 CR3D1T FOR YOUR WORK

OR: M4Y 1 4SK HOW YOU'V3 GOTT3N SO M4NY?

SM: Just hard work, you know. I do what it takes to win.

OR: W1TH TH3 ON3 P3R W33K L1M1T YOU MUST H4V3 B33N F4RM1NG FOR MONTHS

OR: TH4TS 4 LOT OF D3D1C4T1ON TO B3 PR3P4R3D WH3N YOU D1DN'T 3V3N KNOW HOW M4NY YOU WOULD N33D

SM: Well…….. Sometimes you work hard to get when you need, and sometimes you work hard to learn how to get what you need. :::;)

SM: There are always tricks.

OR: SO YOUR3 S4Y1NG YOU CH34T

SM: Would that 8other you?

OR: L3TS JUST S4Y 1 WOULD NOT B3 TH3 ON3 TO R3PORT YOU TO TH3 4DM1NS

SM: ::::D

SM: Then yes, I cheat. I'm a winner, and winner's do what it takes.

OR: TH4TS WH4T 1 W4NT3D TO KNOW

OR: YOU SHOULD KNOW TH4T 1 T4LK3D W1TH TH3 OTH3RS 1N 4DV4NC3 4ND W3 H4V3 4GR33D ON HOW TO PROC33D

SM: ????????

OR: 1 H4V3 POST3D TH3 LOGS TO TH3 CL4N M3SS4G3 BO4RD 4ND W3 4R3 NOW CONDUCT1NG 4 VOT3

SM: !!!!!!!!

OR: 1 W1LL NOT B3 TH3 ON3 TO R3PORT YOU L1K3 1 PROM1S3D

OR: BUT 1 C4NNOT R1SK TH3 R3ST OF US B31NG PUN1SH3D FOR YOUR 1ND1SCR3T1ON

OR: YOU W1LL F4C3 JUST1C3 SOON 3NOUGH

OR: GOODBY3 >:]

officerRedglare [OR] has blocked spinneretMindfang [SM]

8 8 8 8 8 8 8 8

“Like h-!!!!!!!!” Vriska’s shout caught in her throat. A popup appeared on her screen, announcing her removal from the clan. Already???????? There’s no way the logs had even been posted yet. Somebody must have been waiting with their finger on the kick button, just waiting for OR’s confirmation. That was so unfair!!!!!!!! What 8usiness of theirs was it how she got her items? They weren’t in charge of security around here! They were just players! They had no ri8ht!!!!!!!!

She didn’t even have time to see the forum post for herself, to argue her case or deny the accusations. Just how OR wanted it, no doubt. No. No, the others couldn’t really be behind this. OR was going over their heads! Vriska was a valuable member of this clan. If OR thought for one minute that Vriska was going to take this lying down, or that the others wouldn’t invite her straight back in as soon as they found out what happened, that loser had another thing coming! Vriska prepared to launch a campaign of private messages to all the clan officers and other members. She’d plead her innocence. OR had edited those logs. In fact, that whole conversation had never happened! This was all a setup! A scam! A- A ruse! She wasn’t falling for it, and neither should they! By the time she got done exposing OR’s scheming duplicity, they’d see who was really kicked out of the clan. In fact, once Vriska got back to the office, they’d see whose account got found to be actually responsible for duping all those items! Oh, once the other clan members saw OR get banned for cheating, Vriska’s reputation would be cleared for good. They’d beg her to come back! And then. . .

Hmm.

Then maybe she’d turn them down. Yeah, that would burn them good. She’d find herself a new clan, one where her talents would be respected. That’d teach them. A good PVP clan, too, who could show their appreciation by helping her stamp down on those filthy ingrates who had rejected her. Oh, that would show them!

She scrolled through her list of contacts in the clan, wondering where to begin her campaign to discredit this insufferable upstart. Might as well start at the top, she supposed. The clan leader, pupaPan, was always a pushover. Vriska had seen to his installation in the top spot in hopes of teaching him a thing or two, as well as to ensure that she could always have the final say in anything that went on in the clan without having to deal with all the tedious, day-to-day affairs of running and organizing. He’d be a golden contact here, but there were others, too. Her we8s stretched far and wide in this organization, and now it was time for this fly to find out just how deadly the spider could 8e!!!!!!!!

There was a knock at the door.

Vriska looked up from her screen, halfway through composing her opening message. Who would possibly be knocking on her apartment door at this hour? Nobody she wanted to talk to, that was for sure. She turned back to her computer.

The knock came again, this time louder and more insistent. Well, too bad for them. She wasn’t home, for all they knew, and-

BAM!

A heavy blow struck the door from the outside. It looked like they were actually trying to knock her door in! That maniac! Whoever it was had better lay off, because there was no way she was going to pay for-

BAM!!!

“Okay, okay, I’m coming!” she snapped. She got up, fuming, and stomped over to the door, ready to give a piece of her mind to whoever it was making all this racket and threatening to damage the doorframe.

She whipped the door open.

Her heart caught in her throat.

A gathering of a half dozen figures stood there, all wearing green suits and sinister expressions. She barely had time to take in the sight, when they were already muscling their way inside. Vicious pokemon flanked them as they barged their way into her room. A shorter figure, barely standing waist high, was doing some kind of silly dance and singing a nonsense rhyme about how she should “prepare for trouble” and other such foolishness. She wanted to force the door shut, to keep them out, but a hulking machoke seized her in both hands, flinging her bodily back into the room. Before she could even yell, the last of them had stormed in and shut the door behind them, leaving her face to face with the sinister gang.

She didn’t need the introductions the little one was spouting. She’d know those uniforms anywhere. She was face-to-face with members of the infamous Team Felt.

8 8 8 8 8 8 8 8

Darkness swirled around the struck gengar. It staggered, but even as the facade fell away, she knew it wouldn’t fall. Dark type attacks were super effective against ghost type pokemon, it was true, but this was no ghost and never had been. That was why it was able to use nasty plot. This wasn’t a gengar at all.

The illusion vanished, revealing a tall, wolf-like pokemon with slender limbs and a large, bushy tail.

It was a zoroark.

And this time, the focus blast didn’t miss.

8 8 8 8 8 8 8 8

Vriska came to in the darkness. Her head throbbed and pounded. Hard objects jabbed into her ribs and spine, stiff lumps of Arceus-only-knew-what that she was lying on top of. Where. . .? The pounding in her head grew more insistent.

Her eyes adjusted to the few specks of light. This was a familiar place. Home. She was home, sprawled out atop the random clutter of her floor. How was she-?

Recent events began to come back to her. Team Felt. Here. They’d barged in, looking for. . . ? There had been a fight. Where was Spinar8k?! Was she okay? She dimly remembered-

She sat bolt upright. They’d taken . . . something! Her vision swam. Something wasn’t- Her last recollection was of a gastly, some kind of purplish light. . .

The pounding in her head was joined by shouting. Who was shouting inside her apartment. . .? Oh. No. That was the door. Someone was pounding on the door.

Vriska staggered to her feet. “W8! W8 a minute. I’m coming!”

She fumbled for a light switch. Her apartment was- Actually, even though she could tell it had been ransacked, this was pretty much the same as always. Just as well. She never had time to clean anyway. Too much to do, too many irons in the fire. All of the irons, really.

She felt sick and barely coherent. Her head throbbed and thoughts were slipping away from her. There was something she urgently needed to check on, but the couldn’t focus on it. The banging on the door kept forcing her attention.

“I’m coming!!!!!!!!” she yelled, then staggered the last few steps to the door. It was still locked. From the inside even. She undid the bolts and opened the door, then cringed in horror at her own stupidity. After what just happened, without even confirming who it was. . .?

Something was definitely wrong with her head, but not enough that she couldn’t at least duck this time. She threw herself back and out of the way as the door flew open under the force of the next knock. They were back! They were back and-!

It wasn’t Team Felt.

8 8 8 8 8 8 8 8

“Commodore, return!” Vriska called. A beam of light drew the battered and broken weavile back into its ball. She’d been played there, and played hard. Sure, she’d only lost one pokemon, and her opponent was injured, but they were also fast and strong and had a special attack boost from the nasty plot. That zoroark might be able to cut any number of pokemon down before they even had a chance to move. To bring it down, she’d need-

She was given no time to think what she’d need. The zoroark had lunged at her pokemon as she withdrew it, and now it turned to lash out at her! The crazy white-suited man wasn’t playing nice today. This wasn’t a league match to determine the stronger trainer: it was a pokemon _fight_. It was a fight you fought to win, to force the other trainer to your bidding, maybe even to eliminate them if needed. Team Felt had fought this way. So had Slick. So had she, to be honest. It was nothing new to her. But never with Slick or the Felt had she ever felt so in danger of actually losing. Not since that first night.

She couldn’t plot or plan. The zoroark closed in, and she clutched randomly inside her jacket, pulling out the first ball she could reach. Anything to defend herself.

8 8 8 8 8 8 8 8

It was the police!

Well, one of them anyway. Vriska clumsily pulled herself to her feet. She recognized the officer from the lobby earlier that day, the one who’d gotten in a shouting match with the security guard. Thank Arceus! Somebody must have heard the commotion and called the cops. Vriska-

“WOW YOU SM3LL T3RR1BL3”

Vriska nearly slammed the door.

She didn’t. She didn’t have the energy. Instead, she leaned against the frame. Her head was still clouded. It was like waking up from sleep, only the sleep never quite seemed to completely clear from her mind. Her temples throbbed. Her thoughts wouldn’t quite fit together right.

The police were here though. She recalled thinking that she wanted the police to come. Now she just really wanted to lie down and sleep this off, but the police. . . she should let the police look around and do their thing. They’d arrest the bad guys, and she could go back to being awesome. That was how it worked, right?

“Just come in already,” she muttered.

She moved out of the way to allow the officer inside, then staggered toward her bed. No, her bed was upside down now. She didn’t recall why, but she had a feeling those crooks were involved somehow. They’d been looking for. . .

“1 L1K3 WH4T YOU'V3 DON3 W1TH TH3 PL4C3” the officer snarked, her grin showing off long rows of pointed teeth.

Right. The mess. Vriska found she was in no mood for the officer’s sense of humor. She found her desk chair still standing upright and slumped down into it. Just let the officer do what she came for and be on her way. It wasn’t a crime to have a messy home, much less after a break in. Now where was. . .? Something. She should be checking on something. What could it be?

The officer was. . . well, not eyeing her exactly, but sorta’ sniffing pointedly in her direction, although the body language somehow managed to convey the exact same sentiment. Vriska stared at her, bleary-eyed.

“R1GHT” the officer said, raising an eyebrow at Vriska’s demeanor, “WH1L3 1 4PPR3C14T3 TH3 HOSP1T4L1TY, 1'M H3R3 FOR TH3 L4RV4”

“The what?”

“TH3 L4RV4? TH3 W31RD P1NK TH1NG? FROM YOUR OFF1C3 TOD4Y?”

Vriska’s mind took a few moments to process that.

“Oh, that thing. You want it 8ack? Why?”

“DONT KNOW DONT C4R3” the officer said, “0TH3R TH4N 4PP4R3NTLY SOM3BODY CL41M3D 1T 4ND 1S LOOK1NG FOR 1T 4ND MY SUP3R1ORS TH1NK 1TS URG3NT 3NOUGH TO H4V3 M3 RUNN1NG YOU DOWN 1N TH3 W33 HOURS OF TH3 MORN1NG” She shrugged. “NOT MY BUS1N3SS. JUST H4ND 1T OV3R 4ND 1LL B3 ON MY W4Y”

Vriska stared, the details slowly coming together in her mind. The officer _hadn’t_ been called about the break in?

“I locked it in the 8athroom,” she said, gesturing toward the closed door, “8ut. . .”

What _was_ wrong with her head right now? Those thugs must have done something to her. Did she just get clobbered too hard?

The officer was opening the door. There was something red on the ground, something like grub sauce, only not.

“Team Felt!” Vriska blurted out, the words finally coming to her, “Team Felt was here! They broke in.” Then another crucial fact followed. “And they took it! I don't have it anymore. I tried to fight them, but. . . my pokemon. . .” What had happened with to Spinar8k exactly? “You've got to help me! My pokemon. . .” She had a sinking feeling. “I don’t know if its okay.”

The officer stood perfectly still, her back to Vriska. Vriska’s eyes lingered on the deep, red smear on the ground. Exactly like grub sauce. Or pokemon blood. That was right. Pokemon bled that color, that weird candy red, so unlike anyone on the hemospectrum. She felt a rising panic. She needed to know where Spinar8k was! N8W!!!!!!!!

“YOUR POK3MON W4S 4 SP1N4R4K?” the officer asked.

“Yes! Yes it was- IS!” Vriska tried not to choke on her words. “Yes it is! Is it- Oh 8rceus. Is it. . .?” She couldn’t stand. She could barely breathe. That wasn’t gru8sauce. There was no way that was gru8sauce!

“4ND YOU S4Y T34M F3LT BROK3 1N 4ND 4TT4CK3D YOU 4ND STOL3 TH3 L4RV4?”

“Yes!!!!!!!!!”

The officer turned around, drawing in a deep breath through her nose as she directed her red, pointed sunglasses around the small apartment.

Her sunglasses fell upon Vriska, and she paused for a long, thoughtful moment, then shook her head.

“NO 1M SORRY” she said, “1 DON'T KNOW WH4T YOU'R3 TRY1NG TO PULL H3R3 3X4CTLY BUT 1'M PL4C1NG YOU UND3R 4RR3ST”


	4. Prove That You're Really a Troll:

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Vriska finds herself framed for a crime she does not understand, much less one she has committed. She despairs in the face of harsh interrogations and mounting evidence, but a visit from a mysterious stranger may change everything.

The ball burst open. Throwing it was a desperate, panicked maneuver. Vriska had needed something to be sent out, something to defend her, but she’d hesitated too long. She didn’t have time to think about the right choice, the right next move. Light flared and formed. The Zoroark drew back, ready strike down the new arrival. It was still fast, still boosted, but it was wounded. For the faintest fraction of a second, her mind raced and scrambled, trying to figure out what she should have thrown, which pokemon she _wanted_ to be coming out of that ball, but she brushed that thought chain aside.

It was too late for that now. The die was cast. She’d have to roll with what she’d got. The energy coalesced, becoming-

8 8 8 8 8 8 8 8

It had been the door first, Vriska had realized, lying on her back in the tiny cell back in the police station, her head finally clear. The door was locked from the inside, with no evidence of forced entry. That hadn’t matched with her story about Team Felt. If they had broken in, then left, why would they have closed and locked the door behind them? And how would they have done up the inner locks? Vriska didn’t know, but she could see how it looked suspicious.

The mess probably wasn’t what someone expected after a break in either. Her apartment was always a mess, and there was garbage and old laundry on the floor, along with everything else. You’d expect the place to be torn apart after a search, but you didn’t expect the searchers to leave behind old pizza boxes and empty bottles of grub sauce.

There were probably other things too. Vriska wasn’t a trained investigator, but there were just bound to be other things. That would be just her luck precisely. She always had such rotten luck. It was a curse built up from breaking all those pokeballs. She couldn’t catch a 8r8k.

And then the officer had found the-

-the officer had discovered-

-had found the remains of-

And Spinar8k had been found.

And only then, after so long, when the officer had stepped into the gruesome scene, had she begun talking about Team Felt, about how the larva she had come for was gone, how it was their fault.

It must have sounded so fake. An obvious lie, which was covering for something, something related to the missing larva and the fate of her-

To what happened to-

Vriska rolled over to face the wall, trying to keep her shoulders from trembling. There was no one around to see her, per se, but there was a surveillance camera just beyond the bars of her cell, which was pointed at her at all times. Somebody was bound to be watching through that. She wasn’t going to give them the satisfaction.

8 8 8 8 8 8 8 8

She’d expected the good cop/bad cop routine in the interrogation room. That was about the extent of her knowledge of police interrogation tactics: There was a routine called “good cop/bad cop.” She didn’t actually know what the routine was, exactly, except it involved one cop being nice and the other being mean, and somehow that made people confess to crimes. Also, tough guys being interrogated could make themselves seem tougher by pointing out that they knew about the routine and trying to guess who was the bad cop. Like, maybe it took some wind out of the cop’s sails if you acted like you knew he was being mean on purpose or something? She wasn’t sure, really. That was just how it happened on TV. Or. . . she thought that was how it happened. She wasn’t in the habit of watching TV.

Trouble was, she wasn’t sure which one was the good cop and which was was the bad one. There were two of them, certainly: the officer who had arrested her and one other, but the arresting officer never said anything, just sat there and stared at her and occasionally passed a written form to the other cop.

The other cop. . . she didn’t know what to make of him, exactly, but he terrified her. He did all the talking, all of it, and she wasn’t sure if he was trying to be good or bad. Maybe both? He alternated whispering and shouting, and most of it was incoherent, like he saw somebody else across the table instead of her. The whispers were possibly meant to be reassuring, if not that he was reassuring her about things she didn’t get. Like, it’s cool, she didn’t drink the last of his soda, and he knew that. Yeah. Gr8. But surely it wasn’t in question, was it? She also didn’t eat his pies. Or blasphemy his religion. Or stage insurrection against the empress. Or kill over a thousand innocent hatchlings, one by one, cold and alone on the streets of Vermellia, slowly savoring each sacrifice and then desecrating the bodies, severing the heads from their eviscerated forms and adding them to a morbid collection, filling vaults and warehouses with row upon row of silent, spectating eyeless skulls, all of which could stare down on her in final judgment, seeing her every inadequacy and flaw, her inability to bring about that which the dark ones required, punishing her with their unrelenting gaze until she was finally, sufficiently humbled to hear the whispers of the ones beyond as they instructed her on how to carry out her most sacred mission.

No, no, he was totally sure she didn’t do any of that.

_Arceus._

When he shouted, it was more of the same, save he was convinced of her guilt, guilt over a thousand petty or occasionally horrific misdeeds. And he stood on his feet then, leaning over the table like he was barely held back from laying into her then and there, like he couldn’t wait to give her what was coming to her, to tear her, bodily, limb from limb, and the only reason he hadn’t done it yet was that he wasn’t done shouting.

And he kept on startling her at the same time, making her jump with sudden honking sounds emanating from something he held under the table. She didn’t have the nerve to bend down and look, didn’t dare take her eyes off of him.

Oh, and he kept saying “motherlover.” Like, a lot. What did that even mean?

Somehow though, the other officer scared her even more.

The other officer said nothing, did almost nothing, just stared quietly while her partner ranted, but that just made her seem like the one in control. This raving lunatic was an attack dog. The officer in the red sunglasses was the one only barely grasping his leash.

And she had those papers. . . every now and then, she’d slide one over to the other interrogator, and he’d look down, and his eyes would scan across it, and for the briefest moment, his comments would become relevant again, almost coherent again, just enough that Vriska had a good idea what the papers were about.

They were evidence. Evidence against her.

They knew.

They knew so, so much, and after enough sheets of paper, even Vriska had to admit it looked pretty bad.

8 8 8 8 8 8 8 8

Three times. That’s how often she had been brought up for interrogation by now. The interrogators were always the same, but at least by the second time, the crazy one occasionally left the room, so his partner could ask her questions.

Even if she did ask them in a weird, detached kind of way.

And she never gave Vriska any sign she believed or was even hearing her answers. It was maddening. She’d ask a question, then sit there quietly, whether Vriska talked or not. After a while, she’d ask another.

They were good, Vriska had to admit, especially that same officer with the red, pointed sunglasses. Vriska didn’t learn much about what was going on from her questions, save to confirm her suspicions about the evidence against her. Worse, the officer had been investigating her thoroughly and had turned up all kinds of dirt.

Her laptop had still been logged in, when they’d left the apartment, and the officer had snooped through her Grubcraft account quite thoroughly. They knew about the recent ejection from her clan, her cheats, even the conflict of interest with her job and her recent orders to investigate her own account. The officer spelled it out like it made up some kind of motive, though Vriska still wasn’t clear on the exact list of crimes. She was on the block for the killing of her own pokemon, at least, and possibly the larva as well, unless (as the officer put it), Vriska could prove that she’d only sold the thing off or abandoned it. The officer made it sound like they had a solid case, a confession from Vriska would only save them time. Every meeting, the officer turned up with more information, new details about Vriska’s personal life. . .

Some of it was bogus, of course, such as an accusation that she’d permanently crippled a coworker the day before by shoving him down a staircase. Like that would have happened. Assuming there even was an injured coworker (and she had a pretty good guess about who, if so), the lame guy had probably tripped and fallen down the staircase on his own. He had always been a bit of a clutz, and she had warned him about stairs in the past. I mean, yeah, some of those warnings, all of them really, had been made when she was angry, and it was true that any number of them could have been construed as threats against his person, but that probably wouldn’t hold up in court, right?

But it still got her worried. They were finding out more and more about her every day, and they made the facts fit together in the most twisted, perverted ways. It was only a matter of time before they found her guilty of something. And. . . the officer had as good as hinted that, if she cooperated, her boss didn’t need to find out about the Grubcraft account thing.

Vriska didn’t want a lawyer. She wasn’t some kind of chump.

But. . . she was starting to think maybe she should confess to something anyway. Better to do it now while she could bargain for a better sentence than to wait for them to come up with a worse story on their own and leave her doing hard, hard time.

It might be the only choice she had.

8 8 8 8 8 8 8 8

-talonflame.

The firey bird let out a shriek and swept across the area. Vriska’s heart raced. This was exactly what she needed! A talonflame could hit quick and hard, bringing down the injured zoroark before it had a chance to strike back, evening up the playing field. The zoroark’s special attack boost wouldn’t help it be any quicker, and if it never got a move in, what did the boost matter? The boost was as good as lost now, and so was the pokemon.

Her opponent surely knew this.

She struck a pose, pointing a finger directly at the opposing zoroark, before rapidly changing the gesture to a thumbs down.

_You’re finished!!!!!!!!_

The two trainers bellowed their commands almost in unison.

“Pillager-”

“Return!”

“-use-”

“Go-”

“-steel wing!”

“-octillery!”

The blow, which had been aimed squarely at the opposing trainer, struck the pokemon just as it was emerging from the ball. Vriska felt disappointed. Talonflame was a double rock vuln pokemon, so the natural next move would be to send out a rock type. Thinking one step ahead, she’d picked a steel type attack, which would have been super effective against the rock type. Depending on how weakened it was, she could then have either finished it off or switched to another pokemon. Of course, she’d also been prepared that, just maybe, her opponent had been too attached to the special attack boost on zoroark and didn’t want to switch out and lose it. If that had been the case, the steel wing would have been enough to finish _it_ , and the special attack boost would be gone either way.

She guessed the loser in white didn’t have any rock types on his team. Still, this wasn’t a bad position. Octillery had a type advantage, but it was slow. In fact, it was a pretty weak pokemon all around. She didn’t get why this loser would bother with one, but then again, she ran around with an ariados in her party, so she might not be in a position to comment.

It had a type advantage still, though. The steel attack hadn’t been very effective, and this octillery was bred to be tough. It had taken only a minor wound. On top of that. . .

The octillery’s mouth moved in a funny way. Leftovers. It was eating and healing from the attack. It was also-

The octillery squirmed. It seemed to get faster, but just a little unbalanced: The moody ability! After every attack, that ability would change the octillery’s power levels, increasing some aspects and lowering others, but always yielding an overall gain. It could create horrible weaknesses in the short term, but given the time to power up, a moody pokemon could eventually become unstoppable. And with its high defense and constant healing. . .

Octillery might be a pushover in general, but this one was a time bomb. The longer she left it, the more dangerous it would become. She had to hit it fast and hard, or else.

8 8 8 8 8 8 8 8

She hadn’t heard the cell door open this time. She’d been dreading their next arrival, plotting her options. If she could only find something minor to confess to, something illegal but not grossly immoral, would that be enough for them? They already knew about the cheating in the game and her job. If she claimed she’d been blackmailed, she could write off a lot of things as done under duress. Her spinarak, poor Spinar8k, had died in an accident. A falling bowling ball off the desk. That had almost happened, after all. It was more believable than the truth. Maybe they’d let her out on that, so she could mourn the poor pokemon properly.

Not that she was some kind of emotional sap or anything. Mourning it just. . . it seemed like the right thing to do.

They still might get her on some kind of neglect or abuse charge, but surely that’d just be a fine or something, right? It was just a pokemon. Not that it felt that way to her. It was _her_ pokemon! But the law might see it as a more minor thing. She might get off on a slap-on-the-wrist that way. She might be able to save her career and her future, to avoid doing hard time.

But she was still trying to figure out how the larva thing factored in to her story. The blackmail seemed like a good angle, but where should she claim it went, if not to Team Felt? Who else would even want it? Come to that, why had Team Felt wanted it?

She considered just saying Team Felt blackmailed her into handing it over. That wasn’t even a crime, was it? I mean, she just said she’d take care of it, since nobody else wanted it. That was practically how it went. It was her call if she wanted to pass it off to somebody else to care for. She didn’t know if they’d accept it though. They might not accept anything short of her claiming to have boiled it alive and fed it to the murkrows.

It was all so dangerous. If she confessed to too much, they’d book her hard. If she stuck to her story, they’d keep on disbelieving her. If she confessed to too little, they’d believe her even less, take the change of story as proof that she’d been lying from the start, then push her until she gave them the worst confession they could manage.

Maybe if she just-

“You are incredibly boring.”

Vriska jerked to attention. There was someone else in her cell! She hadn’t heard them come in. They were standing over to the side, and the cell door was already closed.

This was a new interrogator, she assumed. She supposed she should be relieved by that. It beat dealing with Psycho and the Silent Stooge, but. . . but. . .

_8_ _oring?!_ Somehow that irked her far more than the other accusations. She wasn’t 8 _oring!_ She was a lot of things, but not that. Never that. She was a player, a winner. She was fun. She was exciting. She was-

“Just so, so incredibly boring.”

“Who do you think you 8re????????”

She glared at him. He wasn’t even wearing a uniform, but he was dressed too nice to be a fellow inmate: A white tuxedo, a matching hat, the brim pulled down over his face so she couldn’t pick out a single feature on his pale skin. He was leaning against the side of her cell, his hands in his pockets. He didn’t even move when he talked, but she was somehow certain that he was the source of the voice, a certainty that didn’t quite come from her ears.

Too well dressed to be a guard, actually. Was he management? A detective? A politician? Or maybe-

“Who are you supposed to 8e, my lawyer?”

His mouth was hidden, but there was a smile in his voice: a smug, condescending smile.

“Your lawyer? I thought you didn’t need a lawyer. I thought lawyers were for chumps and losers who couldn’t defend themselves.”

That irked her even more. She’d never said that out loud, had she? Maybe it had come up somehow during the hours of interrogations. She felt annoyed and ashamed at being reminded though. For the briefest moment, she’d really hoped he was her lawyer, that one had been assigned to her without her requesting it. Arceus only knew she could use some support right now.

“I never said I needed one, num8skull,” she snapped, “I asked if that’s what you thought you were.”

“With such a hopeful edge in your voice, too,” the stranger said, “But no. I’m not a lawyer. And I’m certainly not _yours._ ”

“Then you’re . . . what? A cop? A detective? You’re here to ask me more questions that you won’t 8elieve the answers to?”

The stranger raised a hand as though to examine the backs of his nails. It was as stupid gesture. He was actually wearing white mittens for some reason. Mittens? Really? “No, no questions,” he said, “I already know all the answers anyway, so there’s really no point in questions. On top of that, you’ve been remarkably truthful with the police already, for someone with your rather unpleasant disposition. It’s quite disappointing.”

Vriska batted aside the backhanded criticisms, zeroing in on the fact of greatest importance. “You 8elieve me,” she said. She hardly dared to believe it herself.

“Of course,” the stranger said.

“Then. . . then you’ll tell them! You’ll tell them I’ve 8een telling the truth!!!!!!!!” This was 8rilliant news!!!!!!!! She didn’t know who this was, or how he knew, but he was in a position to clear her name. They’d see she was innocent. Team Felt really did break into her apartment, they really had taken the larva, killed her-

“No.”

. . . “what?”

“No, I’m not going to tell them. Anything.”

8 8 8 8 8 8 8 8

The octillery’s defense was down and its speed was up, thanks to its moody ability. Talonflame versus octillery was a bad type matchup, but even with octillery’s speed boost, Vriska was sure her talonflame would be able to strike first. Even if it hadn’t had the gale wings ability, which it did, her talonflame had more than double the natural speed of any octillery, and if this one was bred for defense, like it clearly seemed to be, it would sacrifice speed and power for that gain. Vriska would get the first strike, and then if the octillery was still standing, she’d probably, _probably_ be able to endure its retaliation, then finish it off with the next attack. That loss of defense was crucial.

“Pillager,” she commanded, “use 8rave 8ird!”

“Protect.”

Vriska grit her teeth as her talonflame streaked through the air, aiming a kamikaze impact at the teetering octillery. The octillery reared back as the talonflame closed in, spitting out a web of defensive energy, and Pillager glanced harmlessly off the web. The talonflame arched away through the air, leaving both pokemon uninjured.

More time lost. The octillery was already healing further thanks to its leftovers, and the moody ability would further unbalance and raise its stats. She watched it wobble with bated breath. Please, not a defense gain. She needed to be able to bring it down fast, and if its defense went up, talonflame wouldn’t be able to do it before being taken down. She’d be forced to switch pokemon, which would waste more time and mean more power gains for her opponent, and if the octillery knew protect, it would be able to stall still further. If the moody worked enough to her opponent’s advantage, she might only have a few precious rounds to do anything meaningful. A few moves existed which could reset moody’s effects, of course, either by clearing the stat changes directly or forcing it the octillery to switch out, but none of her pokemon knew those moves. It was almost as if her opponent had arranged this pokemon just to beat her team.

The octillery wobbled.

8 8 8 8 8 8 8 8

“WH8T????????” Vriska jumped to her feet.

“I know you did not mishear me.”

“You said you knew I was innocent!”

“Hardly,” the man said, “I said I knew you were telling the truth. I don’t think anyone could ever classify _you_ as innocent.”

Vriska gritted her teeth. She wanted very much to hit him, but he was her only hope of getting out of here. She needed him on her side.

“You know I’m telling the truth then,” she said. “Why won’t you tell them that?”

“It doesn’t serve my purposes,” the man said.

“8S!!!!!!!!”

The man finally got bored examining the back of his mitten. He did not seem to think her outburst was worth a retort.

“Why are you here then?” she asked. “How does coming here suit your 8oring purposes, if you’re not going to tell them what you know?”

The man tucked his hands into his pockets.

“I’m here because you need help,” he said.

“So help me!” she said. “Clear my name and get my out of here! That’s the kind of help I need!”

“No.”

“Yes, IT 8S!!!!!!!!” She took another step toward him, trembling with rage. She was going to hit him. She really was. She-

“Oh, that would help you, certainly,” he said, “but you misunderstand me. I didn’t mean ‘no, that’s not what you need.’ I meant, ‘no, I’m not going to help you.’”

Vriska’s heart sank. The fire went out of her limbs.

“What? 8ut- Why?”

“You are a violent, short-sighted sociopath at heart. You are wretched and pathetic, and you have control issues. You have a disgusting and misplaced urge to be the most powerful, the best in everything you do. You hate the idea of being controlled, hate the idea of anyone else being in charge of your life, so you break rules for no other reason than to stock your worthless little ego, to show yourself to be above those rules. You tell yourself that you cheat to win, but the truth is that you cheat because cheating makes you feel important. You need to feel important, because deep down, you know you that nothing you ever do is really going to matter. You only follow the law because you’re afraid of getting into a situation exactly like this one, of being beaten, of being shown for the loser you are. Now it’s happened anyway, and a part of your insignificant mind is actually annoyed not at the injustice of it, but because you can’t even take credit for your alleged crimes. In short, you are loathsome, uncomplicated and eminently predictable, and your ironic fear of being trapped and controlled actually makes you that much easier to use as a pawn.

“I’m not here to help you. You’d be useless with help, just like you’re useless where you are, sitting and rotting away inside this cell. You’ve given up. You’re beaten. You know it, and it’s eating you alive. I’m here to let you know that this is all my doing. You never had a role in any of it, and everything that happens after this will be my doing too. You will never make another choice that wasn’t designed in advance for you by me and which doesn’t somehow fulfill my goals. Hearing this will make you angry. You won’t believe it, and you’ll fight to disprove it, and your fight will lead you along the path to do everything I ever meant for you to do to begin with. That isn’t helping you.”

Vriska bit her lip. His words stung, but the final insinuations made her angry, and just as he said, that anger made her even more angry, because he claimed to be controlling it. And that anger made her more angry still. She bit down so hard she tasted blood.

“So what are you doing to do then?” she hissed.

“Oh, not help,” said the man, the smug, condescending smile still ringing in his voice. “I’m only going to do two more things.”

Vriska narrowed her eyes.

“And that would 8e?”

“First, I’m going to assure you that there is no way anyone will ever believe your innocence after what’s about to happen.”

The dull sound of an explosion sounded from somewhere far above. Trolls were yelling.

“And second, I’m going to make your situation so, so much worse.”


	5. Recovery option one: Enter your secret phrase.

She recognized the change. That was a sharp increase to special attack and a decrease to. . . defense!

This might be the opening she was looking for. If she could just bring it down now, before it had a chance to take advantage of that special attack gain. . .

“Pillager, use 8rave 8ird!”

“Substitute.”

The talonflame streaked across the area. In a flash, the diving bird plowed into the octillery, before it had a chance to act. It was a good thing, too, Vriska thought. The substitute would be another good stalling tactic. It would have used only a portion of the octillery’s health to cre8 and then protected it from a hit, effectively drastically reducing the damage it took. Coupled with protect, the octillery would be able to buy time, stalling as it healed and grew in power. By the time her next solid hit would have come through, the octillery likely would have been much better entrenched. Her chances of beating it at all, even after using all of her pokemon, would have dropped significantly.

The octillery was sent tumbling from the force of the impact, and her talonflame tumbled with it. Brave bird was a kamikaze move, doing fast and heavy damage but proportionally injuring the attacker in the process. It was a bit desperate, but it was necessary to do all the damage she could, as quickly as she could. Her talonflame could always heal later, if she could find the time for it.

The talonflame recovered from the tumble and took to the sky, looking battered but still ready to carry on. The octillery, on the other hand-

The octillery flopped upright and whipped its tentacles about, grabbing a piece of broken wood nearby and standing it upright. It spat something at it, then scuttled away.

It was a substitute. The octillery had imbued some of its essence into a mundane object, causing it to act as a decoy. Any troll would see through it in a heartbeat- it was just a chunk of wood, after all- but for most pokemon, it was a somehow a foolproof imitation of the original. A part of Vriska’s mind wondered how that worked and what it said about pokemon senses, but she had no time to puzzle it out now. The fact remained that any attacks she ordered her talonflame to make were sure to be directed at that chunk of wood, rather than at the octillery.

She’d hoped the octillery would faint from the brave bird attack, given its lowered defense. She’d also hoped that, if it didn’t, it at least would wouldn’t have enough health left to create a substitute. Both hopes had been dashed. It was just her luck. It seemed, even now, she couldn’t catch a 8r8k.

The octillery looked weak enough to faint from a stiff breeze, but that didn’t matter. It was safe behind its substitute, at least for now, and it was already eating its leftovers, healing. It wobbled. Its defense stat sharply rose, returning to normal, at the cost of some of its speed.

She’d struck a good blow, but it wasn’t enough. The situation was getting worse by the second.

8 8 8 8 8 8 8 8

The shouting grew louder. There was a distant roar of a pokemon, a crash. An alarm sounded.

“What did you do????????”

The man showed no outward sign of hearing her, but his voice bore a smug grin.

“You always complain about your luck, don’t you?”

What kind of response was-?

“I said, ‘What did you D8?’”

The distant sounds were worrisome. Ordinarily, she’d figure it wasn’t her problem, but. . . this was going to make her situation worse?! How was it going to make her situation W8RSE!? What was this guy’s angle? What was his deal? Who WAS he?

“You do. You’re convinced you’re cursed, right? The broken pokeballs, I believe. You haven’t forgotten. You think it’s bad luck to break a pokeball, but you keep breaking them all the time.”

And how did he know stuff like that?

“You’re a first r8 creep, aren’t you? How long have you been spying on me????????”

He showed no sign of hearing her response.

“I haven’t forgotten either, of course. I don’t forget things like that. Forgetting is not in my nature. I remember all the important details. It’s an important aspect of who I am, of how I am able to come up with such high quality plans.”

Vriska grit her teeth.

“Yeah, you’re so gr8. Real full of yourself. Now cut it out. You’re trying to pin something on me, aren’t you?”

He just kept talking.

“No, my goal isn’t truly to be reminded. Of course it isn’t. I just thought it would make a lovely transition. There’s a thing you always say, you know. Whenever your deluded, egotistical vision of the world conspires to make you think events are working against you. This is not really a reminder to me. It’s a reminder to you. It’s a prompt. You’re supposed to say the line.”

Like she was going to say anything on cue for this loser. Vriska ran to the bars of her cell. Should she call for the guard? She was starting to really doubt that this guy was a cop of any kind. Maybe calling them in would compromise whatever sick little game he thought he was playing here.

“Your catchphrase, if you will. One among many. You might be able to think of what some of the others are, if you strain your puny intellect. I can even helpfully eliminate some options for you. The phrase I’m talking about doesn’t involve getting all of anything. It also has no connection to irons or to fires. Neither fussing nor meddling is involved, nor is it anybody’s ‘deal.’”

But then, if he wasn’t a cop, how did he get in her cell? They had to already know he was here. Keep it together! This was some new interrogation tactic, some head game.

“This is facetious, of course. You’d know the phrase if you thought about it. You just don’t want to cooperate. If I named it, you’d refuse to say it. You’d act like you didn’t hear me, or otherwise try to exert your free will, only to discover you have none. It’s a normal part of the routine.”

Another crash, much closer this time. There were zaps and bangs, whooshes and cries. It sounded like a mass pokemon battle was happening, maybe just outside the building. Vriska strained, but she couldn’t make out the specifics, and the stranger just wouldn’t shut up!

“But I think you’ll find the routine is just that. It’s regular. It happens over and over again, all the time. Not that this situation is routine in the larger sense, of course, but your responses are predictable. You’ll say it.”

Vriska felt a rising panic. She needed to think. She needed to figure out his angle. Who was fighting out there? This made no sense as an interrogation tactic. Was she supposed to confess to something? Why would she?

“You will say it 42 seconds.”

“Like darkrai I w-”

She spun around to face him, only to hear another sound behind her. She turned again, distracted. The officer with the red sunglasses had come down the stairs, a growlithe and a gabite at her heels. Vriska could see her from the cell, but from her angle, she wouldn’t be able see the man in white.

“Hey!” Vriska yelled. She could at least complain about this loser. The officer turned at the sound of her voice.

Before Vriska could say anything more, a pokemon appeared in midair, directly in front of her and slightly overhead. It fell, and she caught it instinctively.

What was this? An abra? But someone had dressed it up in a jacket and a bowler hat.

A green felt jacket and a green felt bowler hat.

Vriska looked up, locking her eyes onto those weird, pointy shades for the briefest moment, before the abra teleported away again, this time taking Vriska along with it.

8 8 8 8 8 8 8 8

She had no choice. She had to keep hitting it with everything she had. If she could bring the substitute down before the octillery had recovered enough energy to make a new one, she’d be able to get a hit through and take it out. If she couldn’t. . . the subsitute was as tough as the octillery who maintained it. It was only a matter of time before the substitute was tough enough to take her hits, and the octillery’s own attacks would be strong enough to wreak havoc on her team. It wouldn’t matter how many pokemon she’d brought, if it came to that. That would be game. The octillery would be able to fight forever, and nothing would stand against it.

So much would depend on what happened to its stats when moody ticked. Its defense was already back to where it had started, and the man in white was sure to order it to-

Oh!

“Pillager!” she shouted.

“Protect.”

“Use roost!”

Again, the octillery spit out a web of protective energy, but Pillager didn’t attack. Instead, it made itself comfortable on the ground, resting its wings and recovering its own energy. The move made it cease to count as a flying type for the round and also healed it, this time returning it to full health.

It was a small but meaningful victory. The protect was wasted, having nothing to defend against, and talonflame’s gale wings ability would only operate while the pokemon was at full health. With the healing from the skill, Pillager would be able to strike first with any flying type attack, guaranteed, no matter how high the octillery’s speed became. Depending on how things went, that might make the difference between hitting the foe directly and crashing into a new substitute. Plus, it couldn’t hurt to be better prepared to endure an attack, should the octillery begin its offensive.

Still, it was another turn gone by. The octillery ate and wobbled. It was healing, and-

Its speed sharply rose. Its attack fell.

8 8 8 8 8 8 8 8

Vriska was falling.

She had only an instant to register this, before she slammed into a huge bin full of many small round somethings, several of which shattered.

“Ow.”

The abra landing on top of her hurt less than her own crash into the bin. She began to lift her aching body as the small yellow pokemon vanished again.

Where. . .?

The room was dark, but it was obviously some kind of small shop after hours. Racks of clothes and shelves of merchandise could be dimly seen all around her. She felt behind herself and pulled a smashed pokeball out of the bin.

Just her luck. Of course.

“Gotta’ catch a 8r8k,” she muttered.

She pulled herself to her feet and looked around. She needed to find a way out of here and quick. The last thing she needed was to be caught smashing merchandise in a private store after hours. She was already accused of enough crimes, and she didn’t need to-

_Oh no._

All at once it dawned on her what had happened: she was an escaped prisoner! Not that it was her fault, of course. The smug moron in the green suit had called in that abra to carry her away. Maybe this was what he meant about making her situation worse? Escalating her legal trouble by adding an extra charge to the pile?

Well, the joke was on him, if that was the case! Anybody could see she didn’t leave the holding cell on purpose. She began fumbling around the shop until she found the register. There’d be a phone around here somewhere. She’d find it and turn herself in right now and explain what had happened. It wasn’t her fault she’d left her cell. It wasn’t her fault she’d ended up breaking into this shop! That jerk probably hoped she’d trip some security alarm on the way out and get that thrown onto her list of charges as well. Fat chance! She was calling this in, then staying right here for them to pick her up. They’d never try to prosecute her over such a ridiculous misunderstanding!

. . .

Okay, that gave her pause. Wasn’t she _already_ being prosecuted over a ridiculous misunderstanding?

No, no, snap out of it, Vriska told herself. That line of thinking is just going to lead you right where the white suited loser wants you to go. You’re not going to give in that easily.

Her searching hands closed around what felt like an old fashioned cell phone. Perfect. She hit a button.

A television hanging up in the corner of the room flared into life, its light revealing the contents of the shop more clearly. She looked down at her hands and saw an ordinary TV remote, not a cell phone. Useless. She tossed it away and kept searching. There had to be a phone here somewhere. Didn’t these old shops still have landlines?

Vriska was still considering the odds of whether trying to get into the back office would set off an alarm, when the TV’s commercials ended, returning to a live news broadcast.

It took less than a minute of watching for Vriska to realize just how bad her situation had become.


	6. Recovery option two: Please enter your e-mail.

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> On the run from the law and the lawless alike, Vriska tries to find a place to take shelter and plot her next move, but the night is more dangerous than it appears.

Vriska traced rapid steps along the darkening street. There had been no alarm when she exited, at least that she had heard, and no cops were waiting in ambush. Thank Arceus for small favors. She’d pitched her prison clothes in the store, stashing them at the bottom of a half full wastebasket, in hopes that they wouldn’t be discovered, then replaced it with a stolen outfit, consisting of a pair of simple jeans, a jacket and a t-shirt whose logo was two units off in the hemospectrum from her own. She’d loaded a backpack with anything the shop sold which might be useful as supplies, mostly food and poke balls. She’d also adopted a baseball cap. It wasn’t her preferred look, but that was all the better. The brim would shade her eyes and might make her harder to recognize. She’d considered a pair of old aviator sunglasses as well, to further mask her look, but she decided against it: some fashion choices were just too ridiculous, even in these desperate times.

There could be no question of turning herself in now. The newscast showed a live report of a raid by Team Felt against a local police precinct: the very precinct where Vriska herself had been held, only minutes before. There was no way of hiding how it looked. The officer would have seen Vriska in her cell, seen the abra appear, noticed it wearing Team Felt rags as it spirited her away right in the middle Team Felt’s attack. The man in the white suit hadn’t been visible from the officer’s angle, and Vriska knew that somehow, he’d have managed to get out undetected, perhaps with a second abra. Nothing would convince the local police now that she was not in cahoots with Team Felt, that she hadn’t killed her own pokemon and smuggled the larva away to them as part of some sinister scheme.

Her name was permanently marred now. There was no longer a chance of getting justice, at least not from the police. Vriska was on her own.

It was a surprisingly liberating feeling. She was on her own, an outlaw, no longer bound by society’s rules. Sure, she might get tossed in the slammer again at any moment, but until then, she was free and at large. Let them try to take her in! They didn’t know who they were dealing with, any more than that idiot in the white suit did. She wasn’t just some nobody who was going to bow down under pressure. She was Vriska Serket!

And she was going to show them all.

8 8 8 8 8 8 8 8

“Pillager, use 8rave 8ird!”

“Protect.”

An odd choice of moves. Using protect more than once in a row made it less likely to succeed the second time, and Vriska had never heard of anyone managing three. The odds of it working even the second time were low enough that most trolls wouldn’t bother. The octillery had a substitute already, so it was safe. Why not chance an attack? A good water type move could do some real damage.

But the protect did work the second time. Again, the octillery reared back and spat, and again, a web of blue energy appeared, shielding the substitute from the talonflame’s onslaught. Both were left unharmed.

The octillery chewed and wobbled. The gambit paid off, at least. More time had been bought. It healed further. It raised its speed sharply. Its attack fell.

“Again, Pillager! Use 8rave 8ird!”

“Flamethrower.”

So it didn’t have enough energy for a new substitute yet! This was great news. If it had, the man in white could have ordered it to use substitute, so that when talonflame took the substitute down this turn, it would produce a new one to replace it right away, keeping it protected. Or maybe he just wasn’t clever enough to think of that. Vriska tried to do the math. If it took 16 rounds of a fight to heal to full with leftovers, and a substitute used a fourth of the pokemon’s energy, and it had been three turns since it made the previous substitute. . . At the minimum, it would be able to make a substitute again next turn.

Pillager’s gale wings ability granted it the first move, regardless. It zipped through the air, smashing into the undefended substitute. The substitute shattered from the attack. The strike had hurt Pillager as well, but only slightly. The talonflame was still in great shape, but even the slightest wound meant that it lost the edge that gale wings had provided. Vriska would have to heal if she wanted that advantage back. Otherwise, she had to rely on Pillager’s natural speed. Of course, that speed _was_ considerable, but against an opponent whose own speed was now significantly enhanced, it wasn’t a sure thing.

The octillery retaliated, firing a jet of fire as the talonflame pulled back, circling around for its next strike. A fire type attack wouldn’t be much use against her talonflame, but that was a special attack, and the octillery’s special attack was up significantly, while its attack was down. If it knew a water type attack, perhaps that move was a physical attack. If so, the boosted special attack, even at a type disadvantage, might actually be the better decision. The flame splashed and crackled against the talonflame, doing impressive damage considering it was resisted. Pillager could probably endure another such attack without healing, but only barely.

The octillery was chewing and wobbling. The substitute was gone, but it was healed enough to make a new one now. Its defense sharply rose, and its special defense fell.

8 8 8 8 8 8 8 8

It took her the better part of two hours to find a proper alleyway. She should probably blame the real estate market for that. Could nobody afford to leave spaces between buildings anymore? Every possible form of media she could imagine had assured her, time and again, that any given city was rich will dark alleyways, each teaming with homeless trolls, muggers, drug dealers and off-duty superheroes. You could barely go around a block on TV without passing a dark alleyway or two, probably hearing some mugging in progress going on inside and daring you to get involved. In this actual city, though? Not a one.

Maybe she was just on the bad side of town, she thought. Or the good side. However that worked.

Whatever the reason for their absence, Vriska needed somewhere secluded she could spend the night, and an alleyway seemed the obvious choice (fugitives can’t exactly snag a room at the local pokemon center), but two hours of searching made her wonder if this dratted city even _had_ alleyways! Even sleeping in a dumpster, which was beneath her anyway, didn’t appear to be an option: all the dumpsters were locked or hidden away inside secured enclosures. Honestly! What did these trolls think was somebody going to do, steal their garbage?

But find an alleyway she eventually did: a classic, right-out-of-the-movies alleyway, complete with a couple trashcans, a dead end at the back and heavily locked doors leading into the adjacent establishments.

It was also deserted, which Vriska felt was frankly miraculous. Given the scarcity of alleys in this city, this ought to be prime real estate for every drug addict and homeless bum in town. They ought to be fighting over turf here, but they were conspicuously absent. Did. . . did the city not actual _have_ homeless trolls and drug addicts? Vriska had to admit she’d never really given it much thought. Was her home town some kind of social utopia, or was there just a really nice homeless shelter/rehab place around the corner that everyone went to instead?

Vriska sighed. This train of thought was getting her nowhere. Shelter or rehab center or whatever else, she couldn’t show her face there tonight. She couldn’t risk going home either, or heading back for her car. She was alone in the dark in an unfamiliar part of town, and she supposed, for one night, this alleyway would have a homeless person in it after all.

_Ugh._

She shoved her pack up against the far side of one of the garbage cans and tried to get comfortable. The pack was full of pokeballs, hard potions and food in tough canisters. It made a lousy pillow, but she had no other bedding. Maybe it would be a warm night. Or maybe it would be better if she slept lightly, in case someone came by.

She hoped she was hidden well enough. She couldn’t move the garbage cans to hide herself better, since they were chained to the wall (Really. There had to be a band of mad garbage thieves around here someplace. It was the only possible explanation), but they were wide enough and the alley narrow enough that she should be mostly out of sight from the road, especially in the dark, so long as nobody came out through one of the doors.

A car drove by down the road outside. The city was otherwise dead and silent.

Vriska barely had time to start wondering about where she would go from here, when something started moving in the garbage can behind her.

_!!!!!!!!_

Adrenaline surged through Vriska’s veins. She sat bolt upright, backing quickly away from the can. Something moving around in there could only mean one thing!

Wild pokemon were dangerous without protection, even the cute ones. Any troll knew that. As youngsters, trolls learned quickly about how to navigate around the dangers of the world, how to avoid the tall grass and the basics of training and handling a pokemon for self defense. Most trolls got their first pokemon around their fifth wiggling day [Note for readers: Roughly equivalent to 10 human years old], and they were obliged to give them at least a minimal amount of training, as well as to move in groups when away from the city, until they were strong enough to take the local pokemon on single handed. Vriska’s pokemon had been Spinar8k. They’d been together ever since, even if they’d never done much serious training. Now though. . .

Vriska felt a tingle of fear and regret. What she wouldn’t give to have Spinar8k with her right now. She didn’t know if the tiny spider pokemon would be a match for whatever was in the can, but it would at least give her a chance for a fighting retreat. That was, at least, assuming she could get to the other side of the can. The alley behind her was a dead end. If she couldn’t get past the can before that pokemon emerged, she’d have nowhere to run! She had no way to defend herself! It was just her, a dark alley, a wild pokemon, and her backpack full of-

Full of-

Oh.

. . .

Did she dare? Ideally, one fought and weakened a wild pokemon before throwing a pokeball at it. It was possible to catch one without a fight, just by throwing a ball, if you were lucky. Doing it without a pokemon to protect you was a huge risk though. If the pokemon got free, as it most certainly would. . .

On the other hand, she _needed_ a pokemon of her own. She wouldn’t be able to protect herself in the wild without one, to say nothing of being able to ever go toe to toe with Team Felt or the police. The advantages of success were too great to ignore. If she failed, there _was_ always the chance she’d be able to run away on her own. And. . . well, throwing a pokeball had to be a good way to slow a wild pokemon down, wouldn’t it?

Wondering if she was crazy, Vriska took a deep breath, drew a single pokeball from her pack, and slowly approached the garbage can. Dying here would be a horrible way to end her adventure, but she had to try.

The rustling grew louder. She raised her hand, ready to fling the ball the moment the opportunity presented itself. The lid of the can rattled and shifted.

The edge of the lid popped open, and the head of a pokemon appeared.

“No!” Vriska almost yelled. “No, a8solutely not!!!!!!!!”

8 8 8 8 8 8 8 8

“Brave bird, Pillager!” Vriska called.

“Protect.”

The talonflame swerved about once again and dove. Once again, the octillery spat out that web of blue energy, warding the attack away. Vriska had been tempted to use roost again, but it was too risky. If she used roost, and the octillery took advantage of the opportunity to use substitute, she’d be in a bad spot. Its defense was already way up. Sooner or later, if it wasn’t already, it would be toughened enough that she wouldn’t be able to break the substitute in only one hit. Even two hits to a substitute, with protects in between, and the octillery would be healing as fast, if not faster, than she could damage it, while having free rounds to take shots at her own pokemon. She couldn’t allow it to reach that point. She had to hit it now, before it could put up another substitute, so it would be too weak to place one.

The octillery chewed and wobbled. Special defense sharply rose and speed fell.

“8rave 8ird again!”

“Substitute.”

Vriska’s breath caught in her throat. The octillery was easily three times the speed it had been when they started. It had a fair chance of finishing its move first. If it got its substitute out faster than Pillager could strike, that might very well be the whole match. If it didn’t. . . well, at least she still had a chance.

The octillery scrambled for a piece of scrap wood. The talonflame dropped from the heavens. The octillery reared back to expel its essence into the board. . .

_CRASH!_

The talonflame collided, not with the scrap of wood but with the octillery. The octillery and talonflame went tumbling together, before the talonflame freed itself and took to the sky again.

The octillery squirmed weakly, then pulled itself upright. It was still able to fight, and the board was still clutched in its tentacles. It reared back and spat-!

Nothing happened. The octillery was still conscious, but it was too weakened to produce another substitute.

Vriska dared to hope, but even as she did so, the octillery chewed and wobbled. It continued to heal. Its special attack sharply rose, and its special defense fell.

8 8 8 8 8 8 8 8

“Pika?”

The stupid electric rat pokemon. The one everyone was always so. . . Ugh! No. No way! There was no way Vriska would be starting a pokemon collection by catching this useless, overhyped-

The beady, black eyes poking out of the rim of the garbage can had been wide with surprise, but they quickly narrowed.

“Piiii. . .”

Overhyped or not, this pikachu was a wild pokemon, and as such, it was dangerous. True, the electric shock it delivered might just stun her or knock her unconscious, but there was a real chance of serious cardiac issues as well. If her heart stopped beating, she was alone here. There was nobody around to revive her.

She had to throw the ball. She had to throw it right now, or she could _literally_ die!

But she couldn’t. Her dignity wouldn’t allow it. Vriska was many things, but she was not, was NOT, a pikachu trainer. This was a cute cuddly pokemon for the losers of the pokemon world. Just owning one screamed to everyone around that you caught pokemon as pets, that you could not and would not take training them seriously.

Sure, Vriska had spent her whole life not taking training pokemon seriously, but serious training was always something she’d sorta’ meant to get around to. Spinar8k had never been strong, but she had always thought that an ariados would sorta’ fit for her, be her style. As a starter pokemon, it would do. A pikachu though. . .

She’d seen trolls obsess over these stupid yellow fuzzballs. They adorned merchandise and were used in logos for practically everything. You’d hear their demented little cries everywhere these days. Vriska even had an alarm clock with their sound, but she didn’t keep it because it was cute. She kept it because the sound was irritating enough to wake her and infuriating enough to make her not want to go back to bed.

There was a flash of sparks. Power was building in its cheeks. Her arm was already raised. She had to throw the ball. Now!

She tried to tell herself that she wouldn’t keep the pokemon if she caught it. She could release it into the wild, or just abandon the ball in the garbage where she’d found it. Come to that, she was already wanted for killing pokemon. For this stupid little electric mongrel, maybe she could make the charges count for something.

Still, her arm would not move. She just would not, could not bring herself to try to catch this pokemon, even if the refusal cost her life.

And it might.

She stood there, frozen, as the electricity began building brighter.

“Piiiiiiikaaaaaaa---”

8 8 8 8 8 8 8 8

“Pillager, use roost!”

“Flamethrower!”

8 8 8 8 8 8 8 8

Vriska’s life flashed before her eyes, then the pikachu’s voice cut off abruptly.

With a loud “Pi!” it suddenly sprung out of the garbage can, then took off, racing out of the alley.

Her limbs shaking, her breath coming in heaves, Vriska slowly lowered her arm. She dropped her hands and fell to her knees, releasing the ball and letting it roll away across the alley.

The pokemon had run away. Why it ran, Vriska didn’t know. Maybe it had seen the pokeball she was holding and decided it didn’t want to risk being captured. Vriska had never heard about a pokemon doing such a thing before, but maybe with their popularity, pikachus were more at risk of random capture attempts and needed to be careful.

Whatever the reason, she was too relieved to question her providence right now. Obviously, she was just too tough looking, she thought with a wry smile, waiting for her heart to steady itself. It took one look at me and knew it was 8etter off running. It was too terrified of-

“Baaaaaaaa . . .”

Vriska’s breath caught in her throat and her heart leapt back into gear. There was something else here, something behind her in the alleyway. The _dead end_ alleyway.

The pikachu hadn’t run away from her. It had run away from something even worse.

Vriska spun around abruptly, fighting every instinctive urge to cower and panic, to surrender without even looking behind.

A shape was materializing in the shadows, coalescing around a pair of staring red eyes.

A thousand thoughts ran swarming through her mind. She grasped for something, anything.

_So the alleyway isn’t abandoned after all,_ is what she finally ended up with, _It’s haunted._

The darkness flickered into the ethereal form of a banette.

Vriska’s heart sank.

She could have used that pikachu right now. Even a stupid electric fuzzball would be _something_ to defend herself with. Even if she hadn’t caught it, she’d rather be facing _that_ than this. A pikachu might kill you. But a banette? A banette would. . .

Well. A pikachu would _only_ kill you.

Vriska glanced around. There was no sign of the pokeball she had dropped, and no time to try fishing another one out of the pack in her hand. She had no chance of running for it, either. An evolved ghost pokemon would run her down so fast that it might as well already be waiting for her at the alley exit.

But running was all she had.

Her throat choked with terror, Vriska did the only thing she could. She turned, swinging the pack through the air in a useless gesture, hoping to bat the thing away if it lunged. It wouldn’t have worked: blows like that would go right through a ghost pokemon. By some miracle, however, the pack hit something else.

The thing was on top of her, its mouth unzipping for an air-rending screech. Its clawed, ghostly limb lashed out, punching right through her bag, shredding fabric and scattering its contents through the air. Something flashed. Vriska. . . she probably didn’t scream. Only losers scream at times like this. She probably kept her cool. Mostly. That seemed plausible.

But it sure sounded like somebody screamed. No doubt a trick of sound as the banette’s claws raked across something in her pack.

Vriska hit the ground with empty lungs, somehow unmarred from the attack. She scraped desperately to her feet. Shoes pounded the pavement, echoing through the alley. She somehow reached the open street, she swerved, veering to run for open terrain. Maybe if she yelled for help, somebody would hear. Some pokemon trainer might be about, who could intervene before it caught up with her. Her identity would come out, somehow, of course. She’d probably end up back in jail, but anything was better than-

_Woop-woop._

A familiar, but completely out of place sound cut into Vriska’s thoughts. She missed a step, stumbled and slowed. Was. . . that. . .? That couldn’t be the sound of. . .?

_Woop-woop_.

The banette was not behind her.

It was stupid. She should have kept running. This was her opportunity to get away, to put as much distance between herself and the alley as possible and never look back.

But she knew that sound.

Barely breathing, she turned back toward the alley opening and peeked around the corner. There were the garbage cans chained to the wall, the lid of one still askew. There was her torn pack, its contents scattered across the ground.

And there, there in the middle of everything, was a single pokeball, glowing dimly and wobbling, struggling to contain the fearsome ghost pokemon who had accidentally triggered its mechanisms when it tore through her bag.

It was going to escape. Surely, it was going to escape. The odds of catching even a weaker pokemon with just a ball when it was at full strength were fifty-fifty at best. This one was strong. It wouldn’t go down to just-

_Woop-woop._

Vriska should run, but she couldn’t tear her eyes away from the ball.


	7. Email verified. Please enter a new password.

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> After many setbacks, Vriska's situation begins looking up. She stumbles across one lucky break after the next, but danger is not far behind.

She had expected another protect. Her opponent, it seemed, had been willing to gamble on that expectation. Pillager was still faster. It settled down, resting and recovering energy, when the octillery sent out a horrific burst of flame, engulfing the nesting bird pokemon.

Being a fire pokemon itself, Pillager resisted the flame attack, but the octillery had been boosted to frankly unreasonable levels. Pillager’s screech of pain rattled her ears and her nerves. If the talonflame hadn’t just healed, it would have fainted for sure. As it was, it was wounded by more than it had healed. It endured, but it was only barely still standing.

The octillery chewed and wobbled. Vriska didn’t even bother trying to figure out the stat changes. She had only one possible course of action now.

“8rave 8ird!”

“Protect.”

Pillager collided harmlessly off the shield. Fine. So he hadn’t risked another flamethrower. Instead, he’d dug in. Again, the octillery chewed and wobbled.

“8rave 8ird again!”

“Protect.”

Another protect? A risky gambit again, but he must be really hoping to get another substitute out, or just to get his defense high enough that he could heal faster than she could damage him.

The protect failed. Pillager plowed into the octillery, injuring them both but the octillery most of all. The octillery remained standing, but it was a near thing. Just a little more. . .

“8rave 8ird!”

“Protect.”

The protect succeeded.

Chewing. Wobbling.

“8rave 8ird!”

“Protect.”

The protect failed. Pillager slammed into the octillery at full speed. There was a sickening *snap!* as the octillery was thrown at an odd angle, a critical hit if Vriska ever heard one, and the two pokemon went tumbling across the broken ground.

Octillery came to a halt and lay still.

8 8 8 8 8 8 8 8

_Ping!_

_. . ._

Vriska barely dared to believe it. For a long moment, she didn’t dare move, didn’t dare breathe, afraid that the slightest gesture would break the spell and awaken her from the dream, that cold, hard reality would come surging back with relentless finality.

With that final sound, the glow faded, and the ball teetered to a halt in the middle of the alleyway.

Everything was quiet. Vriska’s breathing inevitably resumed. The distant cry of a murkrow stirred the air.

Vriska took a halting step forward. She wasn’t aware of taking a second step, but somehow, there she was, holding the smooth, red-and-white metallic ball. It was cold in her hands. Her breath fogged the surface, very faintly, as it seemed to shine in the light of a distant street lamp.

This was it.

She’d caught a pokemon.

This was the start of her path, her climb to power! This was the beginning of how she became great! Visions flooded her mind: herself catching pokemon, training them, beating trainers and goons, hunting down Team Felt and that bozo in the white suit, even going toe-to-toe with that snarky broad from the police department while she was at it, clearing her name, making a new name for herself, _showing them all_. . . it all began right here!

It was all she could do not to let out a triumphant whoop on the spot. She didn’t, of course. There’d been enough commotion in this alleyway tonight. Any more loud noises, and somebody hearing them might call the police. She still needed to lie low. One freshly caught banette was not going to let her take on a police swat team, not by a long shot.

She still needed to get out of town, catch some more pokemon, prepare and train, but this stroke of luck changed a lot of things for her. For the first time since she got kicked out of her Guilds of Grubcraft clan, she was no longer helpless.

She gathered up her things, preparing to lie down for a much more confident, if no more comfortable, night in this alleyway than she had originally planned.

8 8 8 8 8 8 8 8

Vriska heaved with relief as Pillager regained its footing and took to the sky again. The talonflame seemed to stagger through the air, and it looked ready to drop at any moment. All those uses of brave bird had worn it down, but a win was still a win. Now her opponent had lost a pokemon too, which made them even, and both of them had one wounded as well.

If her opponent was annoyed by the loss, though, he didn’t show it. Not that this said much: her foenever showed much of anything.

Vriska was prepared to press the advantage if he didn’t send out a new pokemon fast enough, but he didn’t give her the chance. He recalled the fallen octillery with one hand while he flicked out a replacement ball with the other, not saying a word as he did so. The exchange was almost instantaneous. It seemed the octillery had barely collapsed, when out had already sprung-

A haunting cry whispered between the shattered walls. The light of the ball coalesced into the shape of a frail, insectoid shell: paper thin and empty but still somehow aware. Vriska quickly adjusted her gaze.

_A shedinja!_

There was only minimal risk, but still: dreadful things happened to trolls who accidentally stared directly into the hole in the back of the shedinja’s shell.

Vriska wasn’t sure what the man in white was playing at here. A shedinja was a wildcard pokemon. It was so weak that even the lightest harm would be enough to end it, but it had a special power that made it immune to any attack that did not have a natural advantage over its pokemon types (bug and ghost). On the odd chance that an opponent had no way to harm it, just bringing one out was a guaranteed victory, but that almost never happened. There were numerous attack types that did have the needed advantage, several pokemon powers that could directly bypass the special power and dozens of ways to harm it that didn’t count as a direct attack. Vriska estimated that any well-trained pokemon had at least a one in three chance of having some way of fighting a shedinja, if not more, and with trainers being permitted to carry up to six pokemon under regulations, the odds were good she’d have at least one or two options up her sleeve. The little pest would go down to a single attack, and its abilities weren’t that great, even if it did get a strike in. Her talonflame, in fact, could bring it down in _two different_ ways. There was no sense in bringing one at all, and even less sense in bringing it out this early in the battle to face a pokemon who could defeat it with a gentle stroke.

Well, if he was going to make a bad move, she was going to take full advantage of it.

“Pillager, use roost!”

“Shadow sneak.”

Vriska grit her teeth, knowing what was going to happen, even as she watched it unfold.

Pillager settled down on the ground to rest and recover, but before it could even touch down, the shedinja dropped into a dark patch in the rubble and vanished, only to reappear from the shadows directly behind Pillager.

The shedinja hopped onto Pillager’s back, and a lance of black energy erupted from the firebird pokemon’s chest, vanishing immediately and leaving no visible wound.

Shadow sneak was not a powerful attack, but it was quick and usually able to strike ahead of the enemy’s counter, regardless of how much slower the pokemon using it might be.

Pillager’s body convulsed with the strike. It let out a short, strangled sound, then shuddered to a heap.

The attack wasn’t powerful, but in her talonflame’s weakened state, it was all that was needed.

“Return!” Vriska snapped quickly, before her opponent could use any hesitation against her. “Ariados, I choose you!”

8 8 8 8 8 8 8 8

The next morning, Vriska’s alarm clock began its usual, cheerfully obnoxious chime.

“Pika? Pika? Pikapi? Piiiikaaa…. Pi? Pikachu!”

Vriska moaned. Was it that time already? She hadn’t slept well on the ground in a back alleyway. The ground was hard and the air was cold, but somehow, she must’ve managed to drift off nonetheless. At least there hadn’t been any interruptions during the night. Nobody spotted her there and came to ask questions, nobody had called the police, and no further wild pokemon had appeared to harass her.

“Piiiiika-pi!”

Vriska swung her hand around hard, slamming it down onto the top of her alarm clock.

The feeling of soft fur registered against her fingertips at the exact same moment she realized: she hadn’t brought her alarm clock.

_The pikachu was back!_

Vriska’s jerked awake, withdrawing hastily and wondering where she’d stuck the pokeball with the banette inside.

There was no need for her alarm. Her eyes opened just in time to register a bright flash, as the pikachu, which had been searching her pack, was slammed on the head by her fist and right into the trigger mechanism of one of her pokeballs.

“Oh no. No. _NOOOOOOOO!!!!!!!!_ ”

But it was too late. The newly filled ball rolled apart from the others, emitting a faint glow and wobbling noisily.

_Woop-woop._

No. Come on, _n_ _8_ _!_ There had to be a way to cancel the process or let the pokemon go! Even if it wasted the ball-

She hit the release button, but there was no response. She smacked the button repeatedly.

_Woop-woop._

The ball wobbled and skipped out of her hands.

She tried stomping on it. Maybe if she damaged it a little, the stupid mouse would be able to escape! Maybe if she smashed it, the mouse would be killed, and she could throw the fragments in a garbage can and disavow any knowledge of its existence.

_Woop-woop._

Why couldn’t it just escape? She was too cool for this. She was _not_ a pikachu trainer! She was-

She kicked the ball down the alleyway, then spied the ball containing the banette.

“8anette, come out!” she yelled, seizing the ball and pointing at the wobbling ball ahead of her. “Use-”

_Ping!_

Vriska slumped to the ground, defeated.

All this, and she still couldn’t catch a 8r8k.

8 8 8 8 8 8 8 8

Bug type pokemon were weak to fire, rock and flying type attacks. They were also weak to poison type attacks, but ghosts resisted poison, so that was irrelevant here. Ghosts were weak to ghost and dark type attacks. Together, that meant that this shedinja could be brought down in one blow by any ghost, dark, rock, fire or flying attack.

Her ariados knew none of those moves. That didn’t bother her. This loser had played one step ahead of her all battle long, but it was time for her to think one move ahead instead.

“Ariados-” she began.

“Return. Go-”

“Toxic thread!”

“Gengar!”

The shedinja vanished, retreating back to its pokeball, only to be replaced by a broadly grinning gengar.

Ariados struck. The sticky threads showered the gengar, drenching it in poisonous coils. Vriska shrugged inwardly.

It was a good move, given her options, and she stuck by it, even though it could have gone better. The attack was meant to simultaneously slow down and poison the opponent. If it had hit the shedinja, it would have been enough to bring it down, although not _quite_ immediately. Shedinja’s power protected it from poison type attacks, but not from becoming poisoned, and it was weak enough that it would collapse the moment the poison took effect. Any other pokemon would at least be disadvantaged by the loss of speed and poisoned, which would tilt the scales a little in her favor.

That didn’t completely apply to the gengar. Gengar was a poison and ghost type pokemon. As a poison type, it couldn’t be poisoned itself, but the webs would be enough to slow down even a ghost. Gengars were fast, and this one would be faster than her ariados, even with the webs, but taking that edge off would matter for a lot of match-ups.

She didn’t expect those matchups to happen now, but still, it had been a good strategy. It had!

It was still a good move, dangit!!!!!!!! She couldn’t have known he’d switch to a gengar. And besides, seeing it resist the poison at least had the benefit of reaffirming that this wasn’t the zoroark again, even if its healthy condition already showed her that.

She stuck by her decision.

This next part, though, was going to hurt.

8 8 8 8 8 8 8 8

Vriska learned something on the way out of town. Specifically, she learned that it wasn’t her town. That abra had teleported her halfway across the region, which meant that the local police weren’t expecting to see her around and thus might not even be looking. The roads out of her own city might be watched, but no one was trying to stop her from leaving _here_.

Of course, she quickly realized that while the police might not be looking for a fugitive, they _might_ be looking for a shoplifter, specifically one who stole the exact set of clothes she was currently wearing. That probably wouldn’t be a big priority for them, but her current “disguise” might be far less than optimal. No alarms had gone off when she left the shop, and she’d got an early start, so she figured she had at least a couple of hours to get out of town. After that, maybe she’d look for a way to change up her disguise up a bit, just in case.

Getting out of town proved suspiciously easy. By ten o’clock, she was passing the last bastions of civilization on her way out into the wilds. What’s more, she was better equipped for it now than before. She’d run into a pokemon breeder hatching eggs and swapped her pikachu for one of his leftover fletchlings. Breeders were notorious for hatching too many of the same pokemon and letting high quality specimens go to waste, because they were not _quite_ the best of the best of their selection. Vriska had heard that they were practically ready to just give those extra pokemon away, and in this case, it seemed she was right. There was no way anyone was actually interested in her pikachu.

By noon, she’d also snagged a rotomphone with a pokedex app, taking it off a younger trainer she’d beaten in a pokemon battle in lieu of the usual cash wager. The trainer hadn’t seemed very happy about the deal, but Vriska figured it was an important life lesson for him. Honestly, he should probably be thanking her for that. Vriska had to ditch the SIM card, so it couldn’t be traced, but the pokedex was an offline feature anyway, and she put the rotom on silent mode when it got uppity.

By dinner time, she’d nicknamed her banette “Matey,” seeing as it was the first mate on her newly assembled crew, and the fletchling she’d nicknamed “Pillager.” The breeder she’d got it from had barely spared the thing a backward glance, let alone a nickname. Something about having only five IVs and not being shiny.

By bedtime, she’d caught a wild zangoose, her fletchling had evolved into a fletchinder, and Vriska felt things were finally starting to go her way.

8 8 8 8 8 8 8 8

Vriska had been in this position once before: Ariados vs. Gengar. Her opponent had seen what she had done then. That time, of course, she’d been tricked. Now everything was exactly as it seemed to be. And so. . .

“Ariados, use psychic!”

. . . she did something entirely different. . .

“Dazzling gleam!”

. . . which was the last thing her opponent expected.

As predicted, the gengar was still faster, but that wasn’t the end of it. Before it even released its attack, a coccoon of swirling energy had engulfed it. The gengar exploded forward from this vortex significantly altered. Its legs had vanished, its arms lengthened. It hunched forward, gorilla-like, its mouth open and screaming a ghastly cry while a third, golden eye glittered in the middle of its forehead.

The gengar had mega-evolved!

And it was bone white. A shiny gengar! That’s why the color had seemed odd to her earlier, it-

Vriska’s train of thought was cut off as the mega pokemon struck. Its fairy type attack was strong and sure, and ariados had barely raised its forelegs to begin concentrating when the gengar’s blast washed over it.

It was a strong attack, but fairy type moves weren’t very effective against poison type pokemon, and the mega-gengar lacked the advantage pokemon gained by using a move of their own type. Ariados could survive three, maybe four more such attacks. Most ariados wouldn’t be in quite such good shape, but this one had been trained to maximize its special attack and health, an unusual combination (usually a terrible one, but one that granted it a vital edge in this matchup).

Her ariados struck with a burst of psychic energy, coming just in the wake of the gengar’s strike. This attack was _not_ resisted by type! Ariados, as a species, was not a strong special attacker, but hers was above average in that regard, and gengar wasn’t a defensively strong pokemon anyway, even as mega-gengar. The psychic type attack was super effective against a poison type like gengar, and the pokemon obviously felt it. It reeled from the hit. Vriska could tell that another such attack would be sufficient to finish it off, but only just.

But the fight wasn’t over yet. Mega-gengar had at least one more chance to really bring its power to bear.

Mega-gengar’s ability, shadow tag, prevented her pokemon from escaping, or even being recalled to its pokeball. Ariados had no choice but to stick out the fight, and her opponent would not be making the same mistake again. Depending on the moves he had available. . .

“Psychic again, Ariados!!!!!!!!”

“Shadow ball.”

Again, the mega-gengar was faster in building up and expelling its energy. Darkness coalesced around the gengar, and then it opened its horrific maw, expelling the accumulated shadow in a dense, coherent blast.

The blast slammed into Vriska’s ariados, hammering it into the ground and causing the spider pokemon to cry out in agony, as phantasmal energy surged through its veins.

The ariados collapsed.

And then, trembling, it rose again.

Vriska’s heart skipped. Ariados was still in the fight! It lifted its forelegs, directing a burst of psychic energy back upon the mega-gengar!

The ghost pokemon screamed, its body losing coherence under the blast of ariados’s mental might. Once again, the swirling energy appeared, cocooning the gengar, and when it vanished, the gengar had returned to its normal state, slumped over unconscious on the ground.

The man in white recalled the gengar without so much as a shrug, then flung out another pokeball, not bothering to call his next selection by name.

Once again, the shedinja appeared.

Vriska frowned. The shedinja may be injured, but her ariados was barely standing. If it used shadow sneak, it would strike first, finishing off her ariados before her ariados had a chance to move, just as it had done with pillager, making it unwise to continue with this same pokemon. Then again, if she switched it out, another pokemon would get hit, and she might not be able to use ariados again later in this fight anyway. She could try to pick something that would resist or be immune to shadow sneak, but the man in white might expect that. What if he had a status move of some kind lined up? Perhaps she should swap to something that would only take light damage from a shadow sneak, but be immune to-

“Ariados-” she began, raising the ball to recall it.

W8.

“Nasty plot.”

She lowered her hand. “-signal 8eam!”

The shedinja teetered on the spot, then its eyes took on a sinister gleam, as its nasty plot was formed, doubling it special attack power. Vriska grinned in satisfaction.

The double beam of energy burst from the forelegs of the ariados, slamming into the already-injured shedinja, which was knocked into the air, although perhaps not as high into the air as one would expect.

Signal beam was a bug type attack, and the shedinja’s wonder guard ability should have protected it from a bug type attack.

It did not, because this was not a shedinja.

As the shedinja tumbled through the air, its illusion peeled away, revealing the zoroark hiding underneath. The black werewolf-like pokemon hit the ground with a troublingly juicy _crunch_.

Shedinjas didn’t _get_ injured, they were either in perfect condition or already defeated. There was nothing in between, and the shedinja she’d fought earlier certainly hadn’t taken a hit. The zoroark on the other hand. . .

Zoroark’s illusions could hide its species, but it could not conceal injuries. Those had been a giveaway.

The zoroark did not rise. The bug type attack was super effective against the dark type, and with its existing wounds and poor defenses, it had been brutally cut down.

The zoroark vanished back into its ball, as the man in white sent out not one, but two pokemon to replace it.

A dou8le 8attle now, is it? Vriska thought, flinging out a second ball of her own. Fine 8y me. It’s a8out time we picked up the pace.


	8. Password change successful. Login?

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The chapter in which everyone talks to much, and Vriska refuses to listen to flavor text.

Within a week, Vriska started to think she was pretty hot stuff. She’d caught several more pokemon, evolved some of them and did a few trades (including a sweet deal where she traded that zangoose for a rhyperior and another trade for a really oddly trained ariados. The rhyperior’s trainer expected Vriska to trade it back after it evolved but, eh. Not her problem), and while she wasn’t exactly a world-class trainer yet, she figured it was time to start doing more than just laying low and training. If her time in Guilds of Grubcraft had taught her anything, it was that spending all day grinding in the newbie areas was only good for so long. Sooner or later, you had to move on to bigger prey.

For Vriska, that meant moving into areas that were currently locked to her. She was a fugitive, and she couldn’t exactly start battling gyms or playing in ranked tournament matches. Battle cafes were too high profile, and the more popular routes for fighting and training. . . well, they were more popular with the cops as well.

Still, locked content was only locked temporarily. Vriska doubted she had the dough in the bank needed to bribe the cops, even if she could access her account without getting busted, so getting through them via paywall was out of the question. Pay-to-win microtransactions were out of her grasp here, but there was always another way to get at the premium features. In Vriska’s case, that meant doing quests.

It was time to hunt down Team Felt and clear her name!

. . .

Or. . . it would be. Unfortunately, Vriska found very quickly that she didn’t actually know how to do that. Team Felt was also hiding from the police, and if the police, with their vastly superior resources, couldn’t find Team Felt either, what exactly was Vriska supposed to do?

She spent the next three weeks grinding, camping and fighting pokemon battles for her supper while she thought about this problem.

And that was when she finally caught a 8r8k.

8 8 8 8 8 8 8 8

“Marowak. Togetic.”

“8ilge Rat, I choose you!!!!!!!!”

8 8 8 8 8 8 8 8

Vriska had been down by the lake when it happened. She didn’t have a rod, so she couldn’t fish, but that’s not what lakes were for, as far as she was concerned. For a trainer, there’s always one constant of life by the water, and that was the chumps. Specifically: it was the chumps with a team full of six magikarp which they caught earlier that day and which they were desperate to try to use in a proper trainer battle. The weaklings always thought that, even if they lost, if they could take down just one of their opponent’s pokemon, earn a little exp, soon they’d be battling with a full team of gyarados and be unstoppable masters of the ocean.

Vriska had never met a trainer with a full team of gyarados before, so she could imagine how well this plan was working out for them.

For any trainer with sense, these stupid fishermen were easy money, and Vriska had been looking to take on as many as she could.

Vriska had just finished up a dull but successful match against the third such fisherman, when she’d heard the noise. It was soft and distant and coming from a pier just a little way down the shore, obscured by a stand of trees that jutted out from the shore.

Like the hum of a cutiefly by your ear, the sound was soft and distant and yet somehow unspeakably irritating. Vriska moved closer in spite of herself. She wondered what the noise could be and, more importantly, how savage of a beating was required to make it stop.

By the time she reached the near edge of the stand of trees, the sound had become unmistakably a voice. By the time she reached the far side, she could begin to make out what it was saying.

“. . . perpetuating, as y9u can see, an unjust status qu9 and further fueling the s9cial sanctificati9n 9f vi9lence. As I explained 6ef9re, this sanctificati9n, indeed, if y9u w9uldn’t 6e t99 triggered 6y my saying s9, I might call it a gl9rificati9n (y9u can 96serve y9urself h9w th9se m9st pr9ne t9 perpetuating these vi9lent trends are r9utinely exalted in the p9pular press, with a reverence which might, were it n9t patently 9ffensive t9 several min9rity and, th9ugh it need n9t 6e menti9ned, maj9rity ethn9religi9us gr9ups, as sainth99d 9r at the very least her9 w9rship), 9f vi9lence and th9se resp9nsi6le f9r perpetuating it, which pr96lematic disc9urse leads t9 the 96fuscati9n 9f the genuine suffering experienced 6y 9ur fell9w creatures, wh9 y9u have s9 tactlessly referred t9 (n9 d9u6t unaware 9f the innate 9ffensiveness 9f the term) as ‘p9kem9n.’ This 6rings up the sec9nd part 9f my third p9int. 6ef9re pr9ceeding further, I sh9uld kindly n9tify all inv9lved 9f the p9tentially triggering nature 9f this p9int, s9 that they may suita6ly 6race themselves against the p9tentially em9ti9nally damaging nature 9f the su6ject matter. 9f c9urse, this sh9uld n9t 6e used as an excuse t9 av9id participating in s9cially-relevant disc9urse, 6ut f9r th9se wh9- Well, further trigger warnings sh9uld 6e issued 6ef9re I c9ntinue further, s9 in the spirit 9f that, trigger w9rds f9r the upc9ming p9int and its ass9ciated trigger warnings and in su6sequent n9tes a69ut th9se warnings include. . .”

The voice somehow resolved itself from a background droning noise to a voice and back to a background drone all over again, as Vriska’s brain first struggled to process, then struggled to resist processing, the words in short order.

The voice was, sure enough, coming from a young adult troll, standing on the end of the pier. Dressed in a red sweater and holding a fishing pole in one hand like the scepter of troll-Moses, he was obviously another magikarp trainer, despite his preachy attitude. He even had a magikarp out at the moment, sitting next to himself on the dock and flopping around as it slowly suffocated to death in the open air. Such a fate would no doubt be a blissful release from its current suffering, and the sensation of suffocating was probably pretty bad too.

Its trainer, however, was showing no signs of ordering it to battle. Instead, all his efforts were on endlessly lecturing a pair of goons in long trenchcoats, who appeared to have cornered him at the end of the dock. The goons had assumed a threatening posture, but their faces appeared more bewildered than aggressive. Their eyes had glazed over from the long speech. The poor saps. They weren’t meant to be subjected to this kind of thing. They were only goons in trenchcoats.

Goons in long, _green felt_ trenchcoats.

_T_ _eam_ _Felt!_

Vriska sprang into action. Covering the remaining ground with a quick sprint, Vriska made an impressive leap across the water, coming to rest on the pier’s end, directly in front of the goons.

The leap was, if anything, a bit too impressive. Vriska had too much much momentum to stick the landing unaided on the narrow dock, and she had to use the body of the yammering trainer as deadweight to slow herself (which had the lucky side effect of propelling the loquacious magikarp trainer off the side of the dock instead). She struck an impressive pose, waiting for the sounds of “n9 t9uching” “seri9usly triggered” and “d9n’t kn9w h9w to swim” to resolve themselves into blissfully muted gurgles.

Vriska pointed a daring finger directly into the faces of the two bemused grunts, making sure it was close enough to invade their personal space.

“Team Felt goons!!!!!!!” she declared, once the air was quiet enough not to spoil the effect. “I challenge you to a pokemon 8attle!!!!!!!!”

8 8 8 8 8 8 8 8

The new pokeballs burst open, spewing forth a togetic and a marowak on one side and a poliwrathin the other. As usual, the man in white made odd choices in populating his team. First two ghosts on the same team, then an octillery and now these two: Marowak wasn’t much to speak of, but togetic? It wasn’t even fully evolved! What was he playing at?

But her experience with the octillery told her she had to take this absolutely seriously. She had to pull no punches and be ready for a nasty trick at any moment.

Type matchups got complicated on a match like this, with so many different ways attacks could go, but Vriska could easily see that every pokemon on the field was weak to at least one of the types of some other pokemon in play. Most of them were fairly slow pokemon, but her poliwrath was middling speed. She was also up one pokemon. Maybe she could afford a reckless charge, just this once.

“Bilge rat, use waterfall! Ariados, sludge bomb!”

“Protect. Light screen.”

8 8 8 8 8 8 8 8

There was this to be said for the goons: They knew how to lose. Like, sometimes when somebody lost a pokemon battle, Vriska noticed they didn’t seem to get what that meant. They acted like it was the equivalent of losing at cards: you shrug, hand over some money, then move on with your life. True, that was often how it went, but the reasoning was a bit different. When you lost at cards, you just lost a bet. You paid up, and then you were square. When you lost a pokemon battle, it meant you were face-to-face with somebody who controlled a squad of dangerous creatures with supertrollian powers, and you didn’t. What you did when you lost a pokemon battle wasn’t just hand over money and walk away. What you did was _anything the other person wanted_. And if you were lucky, as people usually were, those were the same thing.

That wasn’t what Vriska was after here. Vriska trounced the goons, announced who she was and demanded to be taken back to their headquarters.

And like a good pair of losers, the goons had looked at one another, shrugged and led her back to their car.

It was refreshing, really, seeing somebody who understood so well how things worked that they didn’t need it explained to them. So many of the trainers who crossed her area of the woods could learn a lesson or two from thugs like these. Really, you wouldn’t _believe_ the kind of whining she had to put up with most days. Like “Noooo! 33: Just because you won the battle doesn’t mean you can take my Z-ring without purrmission!” or “Nooo, juXt becauXe you won the battle doeXn’t mean you can lay claim to all my mega XtoneX!” Like _yeah?_ It kinda’ _does_ , loser. Sheesh.

Honestly, these two grunts went along with such ease, one could almost imagine that giving her a ride back to their headquarters was what they wanted to do to begin with. The world could use more grunts like them. Maybe Vriska would ask for their business cards when this was over. I mean, she was broke now, obviously, but that would change someday. Maybe when she was more settled. . . I mean, who couldn’t find a use for a few well-trained lackeys?

They’d probably be out of work soon anyway.

8 8 8 8 8 8 8 8

Bilge Rat was, as she’d predicted, the quickest to strike, but you didn’t need to be fast to use protect. The water/fighting pokemon leaped into the air, generating an enormous quantity of water as it moved, which it brought crashing down, along with its own body weight, upon the hapless marowak. Marowak, however, protected itself, throwing up a screen of energy just as the attack landed. Water cascaded over the area, trickling away down cracks and seams and vanishing into the mountaintop, but the marowak and poliwrath both drew away from the engagement unharmed.

The man in white’s togetic drew up a glowing screen, which sheltered both itself and the marowak. The screen would lessen the power of special attacks which targeted either of them, but physical strikes like poliwrath’s would be unaffected. The screen would only work one-way as well, defending them without impairing their own attacks, and there was no way for her pokemon to close in and use it to their own advantage.

Ariados’s sludge bomb was one such special attack. The ball of toxic sludge ariados hurled slowed visibly when it passed through the field, but it wasn’t, it shouldn’t have been, enough. The move was super-effective against a fairy type like togetic, and it wasn’t even a fully evolved pokemon. A weakling like that. . .

But when the sludge struck the togetic and, true to its name, exploded, the togetic barely even seemed to acknowledge the blow.

The attack hit. Vriska saw it, and there was definitely damage, but there was way too little, almost too little to matter. Vriska was stunned. Even with the light screen. . . were togetics hardier than she thought they were? Maybe with the right breeding and training. . . plus, being unevolved it could still use eviolite, so-

Vriska almost missed issuing her next command. The man in white was already calling out attacks.

“Belly drum-”

“8ilge rat, waterfall again! Ariados, another sludge 8om8!”

“-and follow me.”

8 8 8 8 8 8 8 8

Whether the guards at the main gate would have respected Vriska’s having defeated the goons, as the goons did, would have to remain as a matter for speculation. She wouldn’t have thought they owed her that. As far as she was concerned, the goons had led her to the base, but it was her own job to get inside. Still, though, there was no telling with some losers. . .

Either way, she never gave them a chance. Mercy was all well and good on paper, but you didn’t train up pokemon by never giving them a chance to fight anything. As soon as it was clear that their secret base was in sight, Vriska shoved the driver out of the way (and out of the vehicle) and stopped the car, then took an immediate offensive against the unsuspecting gate guards.

They had pokemon of their own, of course, but they were weak, perhaps trained to help detect threats more than to help repel them, and Vriska dispatched them easily before proceeding inside.

In the ensuing havoc, Vriska was impressed with herself. She knew she was awesome, of course, but after only a few weeks of obsessive training, she was already a force of nature against these unsuspecting thugs and peons. One had to wonder how groups like this ever managed to pose a threat to anyone. Or. . . maybe you didn’t wonder. Vriska could actually recall news stories about teams like this getting taken down by children. It was just sorta’ something that happened from time to time. Maybe the goons were just weak.

That thought made Vriska feel a little bit less impressed with herself, but only a little bit. She was still awesome. This just maybe wasn’t the best evidence of it.

8 8 8 8 8 8 8 8

Vriska knew she was in trouble even before she saw it happen. It took only a fraction of a second to process what his commands were and what they meant for her pokemon, but that was too long for her to take back the moves she had already called out. Besides, she wasn’t sure what else she’d have been able to do.

The togetic rose to prominence, before Bilge Rat had taken more than a half a step forward. It spread its wings and raised its hands in a welcoming gesture. There was, perhaps, the faintest of glows, but nothing else appeared to happen. Vriska knew better. The move manipulated the minds of other pokemon in a way only a scarce few were able to resist. It was a subtle effect, but it was enough that both of her pokemon would now direct their attacks toward the togetic this turn, regardless of their orders to the contrary. The marowak would be ignored.

Sure enough, when Bilge Rat threw itself into the air again, building up a crashing heap of water and slammed down with it in a heavy strike, it landed not on the enemy marowak but on the togetic. The togetic really was a sturdy piece of work. The attack did more than then the sludge bomb, if only barely, owing to the lack of light screen’s influence and the overall higher offensive power of the poliwrath, but it still wasn’t enough. It would take a couple more hits like that to bring it down.

The marowak, ignored off to the side, was faster than her ariados, but it didn’t strike. Instead it raised its bone into the air. . .

. . .and began hitting itself.

Belly drum was an. . . interesting move. Vriska didn’t usually set much store by it, but it certainly _seemed_ impressive on paper. In performing the move, the pokemon would attack itself, causing itself serious injury yet using that pain to motivate itself to attack with unimaginable fierceness. The attack power of any pokemon that used it was quadrupled, but at the cost of weakening the attacking pokemon to the point that it was usually easy enough for others to bring down. Between that tradeoff and the fact that one wasted an opportunity to strike just by powering up like that, most pokemon who used it, in Vriska’s experience, never got a chance to attack at all. They were soundly beaten before the boost ever became relevant.

With this togetic to cover it though, that marowak might just get that chance.

Ariados followed up with its sludge bomb, almost as an afterthought. The burst of slime exploded against the togetic. It showed signs of being poisoned, an known but unreliable potential side effect of the sludge bomb, but Vriska doubted the poison would wear the togetic down fast enough to make much difference.

The togetic wasn’t invincible. These hits were wearing it down, but it was amazing that it could survive this many. Another strike from both of her pokemon would probably be enough to finish it, but by then, the marowak would definitely have a chance to strike back in turn. Depending on the attack, that could mean the end of the fight for one, if not both, of her active pokemon.

Vriska may not have seen much use in the move before, but a pokemon powered up by a belly drum and still fighting was no laughing matter.

8 8 8 8 8 8 8 8

It didn’t take her long to track down the numbskulls in charge of this operation. Nobody was ever sure who was really running Team Felt, but this was, apparently, them. Not that they were _in charge_ in charge, obviously: there was always a bigger end boss, but they were at least the local top brass. The tall skinny one with the maroon hat and the pointy green face was definitely the brains of the operation, while the short, energetic one was most likely the charisma. They put up their hands and started making excuses at the first sign of trouble. Pathetic.

The tall one started going on about “misunderstandings” and “mutual advantage” and some such other rot. The short one started spilling exposition with some kind of riddles and a song and dance number.

Vriska gagged. She knew a quest hook when she saw one, even if these two didn’t have a big exclamation mark over their heads, like always happened in Guilds of Grubcraft. She hated listening to quest exposition. It was useless flavor text. She always just skipped over it and checked the quest objectives on her quest journal, along with the rewards. She didn’t _need_ all the messy details. These two, though, didn’t come with a skip button. At least, none so obvious.

Thinking outside the box, she ignored them and just sent out her pokemon for a battle. After all, once she beat them, they had to do whatever she told them to do. Those were the rules.

She was going to tell them to shut up.


	9. Login failed. This account has been banned.

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Having raided Team Felt's base, Vriska sets her eyes on what she believes to be the top brass, hoping to bring her adventure to a triumphant conclusion. If anything is not what it seems, Vriska can't be bothered to notice.

Vriska thought she knew how this would go. The togetic would use follow me, her pokemon would both attack in their usual pattern. The attacks would be redirected toward the togetic. Bilge Rat would hit the togetic, then the marowak would knock out one or both of Vriska’s pokemon, before ariados could attack. Then, hopefully, the poison would be just enough to finish off the togetic. Losing pokemon would sting, but she would only have lost four pokemon, and her opponent would only have a shedinja and a slow, badly wounded marowak left to fight with. From there, cleanup would be easy, and victory would ultimately be hers.

It was _too_ obvious of a chain of events, in fact, so Vriska was unsurprised when her opponent didn’t follow the script.

“8ilge Rat, use waterfall on the marowak! Ariados, sludge 8om8 on that togetic!”

“Protect. Roost.”

Marowak threw up its protective shield again. Bilge Rat came crashing down. No effect. Togetic settled down comfortably on the ground, just as her talonflame, Pillager, had done earlier in the battle. Many of its wounds faded away. Ariados struck with its sludge bomb, but it was, again, only of minimal effect.

Even after the poison continued to do its work on the togetic, the net result of the exchange was that all other pokemon were unharmed, while the togetic was even healthier than before.

8 8 8 8 8 8 8 8

Vriska snarled, sure she’d been had. These two losers couldn’t possibly be the heads of this operation. She kicked at the final pokemon as it was being withdrawn into its ball. The steel type specialist, sure, she’d buy, but this other moron seemed to specialize in pokemon who knew only metronome. _Metronome?!_

She closed in on them, letting her pokemon loom threateningly.

“Alright, m8s!” she demanded, “Where’s your 8oss? Your real 8oss this time, not another second-r8 chump!”

The pair sweated visibly. That was good, but the tall one still tried to explain that he was the one running the operation here, and there was no need for violence! Why, they could still arrange some sort of-

Vriska snapped her fingers, and Matey loomed closer, his shadowy essence creeping over the two ex-gangsters.

They both began pleading. Good.

“Then tell me what I want to know!!!!!!!!” she snarled. “Who’s in charge of this cr8 of morons?”

The two exchanged resigned looks, then the taller one got to his feet, assumed a properly humble and submissive posture and offered to write her an address.

8 8 8 8 8 8 8 8

It was a bad situation, certainly, but she didn’t have many choices.

“Again! 8ilge Rat, waterfall on the marowak! Ariados, sludge 8om8 on togetic!”

“Follow me. Earthquake.”

The togetic raised its hands, guiding the attention of all attackers towards itself, and the pokemon had no choice but to follow. Bilge Rat struck first, delivering a hammering blow with its waterfall, but togetic weathered the attack, if not comfortably, then at least securely. Ariados raised its forelegs, preparing for another sludge bomb, which-

-was too slow.

The marowak raised its thick club in the air and slammed it against the ground. Vriska turned and sprinted away from the resulting shockwave. The mountaintop ruins splintered as the earthquake tore over the area, shredding the final remains of the flimsy wooden shelter. Vriska barely dove outside the blast radius in time.

Her pokemon were not so fortunate.

She turned back to look into the settling dust to see the broken, bloody remains of her pokemon. She quickly recalled them to their balls. The damage they had received was almost certainly lethal, but the balls would hold them in suspended animation until a pokemon center could revert them to a snapshot of an earlier, healthier condition. There was always a risk if they were recalled too slowly, of course, but-

Vriska didn’t have time to think of such things now. The marowak was closing in on her, ready to do the same thing to her if she didn’t send out new pokemon to defend herself with. She grabbed a pair of balls from inside her jacket and flung them into battle.

“M8y! Swa88ie! I choose you!”

8 8 8 8 8 8 8 8

She’d wanted to ask for more details. She really had wanted to, but the arrival of the police proved too distracting.

“T34M F3LT! TH1S 1S TH3 POL1C3! YOU'R3 4LL UND3R 4RR3ST! COM3 OUT 4ND PR3P4R3 TO F4C3 SW1FT JUST1C3! >:]”

Vriska cringed. The cops? While she was sure they’d be a big nuisance for _Team Felt_ , Vriska wasn’t personally interested in rumbling with the entire police force either.

Then again, if groups like Team Felt typically ran amok and were stopped by children, the police couldn’t be much tougher.

Vriska snatched away the paper that the steel type dork had just finished writing on and peered out through the blinds. In the courtyard below, a single police motorcycle was parked, and a lone officer stood astride it.

Vriska recognized the officer from her interrogations. That same thorn in her side for so long. . . And she’d come alone? Oooh, revenge would be sweet, if a bit too easy to be really satisfying. Vriska had seen some of the officer’s pokemon already. A growlithe and a gabite, weren’t they? The officer would be lucky to get past all of team felt with a pair like that, let alone Vriska herself.

As Vriska watched, a lone team felt member approached and engaged the officer. Apparently some of them had been clever enough to heal their pokemon after Vriska had finished with them. All the more reason Vriska should start collecting business cards. The grunt sent out a zubat. The officer responded with a-

With a-

A WHAT?!

That wasn’t-!

That figure that emerged was far too large to be either gabite or growlithe. At least ten feet tall, shrouded in bleached fur and matching snow-white flame, it furled its massive wings and let out a roar that shook the very walls of the facility.

A _reshiram_!?

S8riously!?

That was _beyond_ unfair! Where did a lowly police officer get a legendary dragon pokemon? Come to that, what was a trainer who could tame a legendary dragon doing as a lowly police officer? And why was she bringing it out against these goons? That was overkill in the extreme! That was-!

Really, when she thought about it, Vriska figured that battling police officers might not be the wisest idea if she was going to try to clear her name later. Taking on the cops was likely to get counted against her on the court listings, you know? She should try not to have too much of an additional criminal record when she disproved the initial charges. That was the smart move. It only made sense, right?

Yes, best to make sure the officer never saw her at all. She couldn’t let her thirst for revenge overcome her better judgment.

She’d get her payback on the officer some other way, Vriska thought, watching the dragon’s fusion flare rip apart a nearby building.

You know, sometime later.

8 8 8 8 8 8 8 8

Vriska’s pokeballs burst open, revealing her ambipom and banette. Losing the previous two pokemon was something of a disappointment, but now the match was in the bag. The togetic was weak, the poison still sapping it. It would drop in a stiff breeze after another exchange. It would drop before then if anything hit it. Without the togetic to protect it, the marowak was too slow and too weakened by the belly drum to have a chance of striking back. She’d finish both of them this round, without taking a scratch, and then only his shedinja would remain. Alone (as long as she had a way to damage it), it would be no threat to anyone.

But Vriska wasn’t satisfied with just winning. She was taking no chances. She was going to hit him with all she had, and she was going to make it _hurt_.

Vriska pulled up the left sleeve of her jacket, revealing her mega ring.

“Let’s do this!!!!!!!!”

A ball of energy cocooned her banette. Matey rose into the air, surging with power, then exploded from the ball, ascended into mega-banette form.

“Follow me. Rock slide.”

“Shadow sneak! Dou8le hit!”

The togetic was still faster, raising its arms and drawing in the other pokemon even faster than the shadow sneak could strike, but it didn’t matter: Matey had been aiming for the togetic anyhow.

The mega-banette came in with the same attack the shedinja had used to finish off her talonflame, but it hit with considerably more punch. Blood was visible as the already-weakened togetic was recalled into its pokeball.

The togetic was gone so fast that Swabbie the ambipom veered off course for the faintest moment, before it was back on track again, closing in on the marowak.

Double hit was not normally a terribly impressive move, but through a quirk of ambipom’s technician ability. . . well, even if that was an impressively sturdy marowak, the move would still be enough for this. Even if the marowak somehow endured, Vriska had equipped Swabbie with a king’s rock. Like a brass knuckle, the king’s rock would add just a little bit of bite to each of the attack’s two hits, creating a cumulative chance that the marowak would wince with pain and be unable to retaliate.

Vriska was, as has been said, taking no chances.

The ambipom closed fast, moving like a blur compared to the ponderous, deliberate striking of the marowak. It swung its twin tails around like fists. . .!

And the marowak sidestepped, barely avoiding the blow. Ambipom had missed.

In the back of Vriska’s mind, a tiny voice corrected her inner narrative. She had, she supposed, been taking _some_ chances.

The marowak unleashed its power.

8 8 8 8 8 8 8 8

They were obedient little defeated thugs, as well as competent middle management. The two fake Team Felt leaders Vriska had defeated both knew of a secret back exit and were willing to share it with her. She slipped away with them along a secret tunnel while a variety of Team Felt grunts uselessly threw their pokemon in the path of the officer and her reshiram.

In retrospect, it rather annoyed Vriska to think that there was a secret exit like this. The top Team Felt admins on the site hadn’t bothered to use it when she came charging through, but they all used it to runfrom that officer? Did she not seem intimidating enough to them? Or. . . had the _real_ leadership actually used the tunnel already, and these lower admins been left behind to cover their retreat, as the grunts were now doing for them? That seemed more likely.

Still, Vriska didn’t bother to ask. Asking would just lead to more boring exposition.

Vriska was a troll of action. As soon as she was away from the facility, it was right back to business. She flipped the admins an appropriately rude gesture, something dismissive but not actually hostile, and went on her way, address paper in hand. They were good goons. She could rely on them to stick to their principles and not let their bosses know she was coming.

She beat up a couple of trainers, claiming a bike, a couple TMs and some spare pokeballs as her reward, and began fighting her way cross country toward the new hideout.

8 8 8 8 8 8 8 8

The ground beneath the marowak _lifted._

Like a rising wave, the ground piled up below the marowak, rising up so that its shadow swallowed the entire battlefield. The wave peaked and crested. Soil tore away, revealing a deluge of falling stone, which cascaded across the area. Again, Vriska fled for safety, but her pokemon were in too close, too engaged in the fight. Fast though they were, there was no way they could get out of range in time. Rocks fell at random, each at least the size of her head, some considerably larger, pummeling the ground below.

She saw Matey first, when the dust cleared. The mega-banette was strong, but the belly drum-powered rock slide was too much, even for it. Its stuffed form lay smashed and torn, its mega-evolution slipping away and returning the remains to their normal, if tattered, state.

Vriska recalled it quickly to its pokeball. Could ghost pokemon die? She wasn’t really clear on that, but this one would definitely need healing. She looked around.

Lingering dust choked the air. Swabbie must be in the same condition, if not even worse, but she couldn’t see it anywhere. She had to recall it. Quickly!!!!!!!! It wasn’t a ghost pokemon. It _could_ die, if it wasn’t returned fast enough. There was even the risk, always the risk, that it might already be too late.

Visions of another pokemon swam through here head, a tiny spider lying mangled in her bathroom, the steady pooling of its blood. . .

“Swa88ie!” she screamed.

A heart-warming cry met her call, and Swabbie the ambipom hopped out from among the debris, completely unscathed. Vriska dropped to her knees, aware that she was shaking. Her pokemon was okay. The attack had missed it. That was a risk with the haphazard shots of a rockslide. Maybe she had finally caught that 8r8k after all. . .

“Shedinja. Metal claw. Marowak, earthquake.”

Vriska paid for her moment of lapsed attention. Her opponent had already sent out his last pokemon to join the marowak. It was two on one, a shedinja and the marowak against Swabbie the ambipom. The ambipom was faster though, and the marowak was already wounded. . .

“Dou8le hit!”

The ambipom rushed in, bounding across the fallen stones with flawless agility. It sprang into the air, directly over the marowak, and its twin tails descended again, plummeting like fists against the hapless pokemon’s skull.

 _Crack!_ The first blow landed and _Crack!_ the second landed almost immediately in its wake. The combined strikes knocked the marowak face down into the ground, then hammered it into place. Swabbie continued its aerial spin, then landed gracefully. The marowak did not rise.

Vriska’s fist pumped the air in celebration, but the gesture was premature. Out of nowhere, the shedinja sailed into view, taking Swabbie by surprise. Its thin, fragile claws raked at the monkey pokemon with impressive ferocity. Crimson droplets of pokemon blood speckled the ground.

Swabbie withdrew toward Vriska, and the shedinja turned slowly to face them. The battle still wasn’t won.

Vriska glared at the man in white, who as usual, kept his hat down over his features and showed no more than the most minimal body language.

Neither side gave an order.

8 8 8 8 8 8 8 8

Even with the bike, it had taken Vriska weeks to reach the new address. The distance was only part of the problem. Being a fugitive, Vriska couldn’t travel very openly, and she’d had to move around via wilderness routes while minimizing her exposure to anyone likely to recognize her and/or report her to the police.

After about a week of that, it had begun to occur to her that a group of criminals whose location had been leaked might not stay in place that long. She might be going through all this trouble to track down an abandoned hideout. There wasn’t much she could do about that, though. Hopefully she’d be able to scour the new site and find some clues about where they’d gone. If not, she’d be back to square one, looking for grunts and goons to beat and interrogate all over again.

Luckily, when she finally arrived, after weeks of travel and intense training, she did not find the new site abandoned after all, but somehow she’d only arrived just barely in time. The residents had packed and were preparing to head out, but Vriska swooped in at just the right moment to ensure they weren’t going anywhere.

There were only four of them, and they didn’t _dress_ like members of Team Felt, but they were obviously mobsters. Vriska supposed it made sense. After all, why wear rags which advertised your criminal status all the time? That was for minions, minions whose flashy getups would distract from the folks who were really in charge. The fact that these four were dressed in simple, yet serviceable black hats and suits practically proved she’d finally found who she was looking for.

She didn’t ask questions. Listening to explanations was for chumps. She announced herself and her intentions, then got straight to the pokemon battles.

8 8 8 8 8 8 8 8

A gentle wind graced the mountaintop ruins. Vriska realized she’d been breathing hard, and her breath gradually slowed, her heart steadied. The two pokemon stood at the ready before her, awaiting their respective masters’ commands. The man in white stood beyond, impassive as ever.

The commands didn’t come.

“Yes, I thought as much,” the man in white said at last.

Vriska didn’t reply.

“You fought bravely,” he said, “but as you can see, our match is at an end. We each have only one pokemon remaining, and as I’ve demonstrated, my pokemon is capable of injuring yours, albeit mildly.”

He paused to let Vriska interject, but she didn’t. Her breathing steadied further, and she straightened her posture.

“And yet you, from your silence, have only confirmed for me what I’ve suspected all along. Your last remaining pokemon doesn’t know any moves or techniques that could harm my shedinja. Thus I win. I can strike your pokemon down, eventually, but you cannot do the same in return. Check and mate.”

Vriska kept her gaze lowered. She folded her arms.

“Yet, I suppose you’ve earned something from me,” the man in white said. “After all, you’ve fought well, and it would take some time for my shedinja to whittle down your ambipom. It might easily turn into a contest of whether you were carrying more potions than I was ethers. I would win such a contest, but it would be pricey and bothersome.”

Vriska shifted her weight slightly.

“So I suppose by way of being a gracious victor, and to save myself a great deal of trouble, I can permit you to simply walk away. Take your pokemon and make your retreat down the mountain. In fact, with one pokemon remaining to you, no one need ever know that you lost. You can go on your way, ego intact, content to call this a draw, or even a victory for all I care. I’m generally not terribly concerned with such things. So long as my master is left undisturbed and able to continue his plans, you can feel free to- to-”

Now it the man in white whose posture shifted, a rare gesture.

“Are you _tapping your foot?!_ ”

“Are you done 8la88ing?” Vriska asked.

“I do not blab!” the man in white’s feckless demeanor was cracking, and he quickly resumed his unconcerned posture, attempting to reestablish it. “I was merely offering you a polite assessment of your current situation, and extending a most generous-”

“8lah, 8lah, 8lah. What a 8la88ermouth.”

“- _a most generous offer_ which I now feel inclined to retract. Very well! If you will not accept my good graces, I shall not provide them. You can sit and watch, while I show your last remaining pokemon a most unpleasant and unfitting end. And then, once I am through with it, you will find I am far less generous with an undefended trainer than I am with her-”

“8lah 8lah 8lah 8lah 8lah 8lah 8lah 8lah. Yeah. Gr8. Are you finished?”

“Entirely! Shedinja! It’s time to show her last pokemon-”

“That’s not my last pokemon.”

“Grzst-!!!!”

Vriska’s lips curled into a smile as she raised her gaze to her opponent. The man in white took a very long time to regain his composure.

“A truly tiresome bluff,” he said after a forced silence. His voice was mostly calm again, but there was an edge of strain to it. “I can count, you know. You lost your banette, your ariados, your weavile, your talonflame and your poliwrath. That makes five pokemon lost. Your ambipom is your sixth. You are defenseless.”

“Riiiiiiiight,” Vriska said. “8ecause league rules dict8 that I can only carry six pokemon at a time. Doing more than that would 8e cheating. I would h8 to 8e thought of as a cheater.”

Her smile widened.

“A fair point,” the man in white said, “If you actually had the foresight to-”

Vriska pulled an extra pair of pokeballs out of her jacket.

“Six pokemon was never really my style,” she said, tossing the two additional balls into the arena ahead of herself.

“I 8rought 8.”


	10. Welcome, new user!

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The final showdown concludes! Secrets identities are revealed, lucrative quest rewards are gathered, and Vriska still refuses to read the quest descriptions.

Vriska decided she liked Slick. He was alright, once you got past the boring, besuited exterior and down to the creamy center of quiet, seething rage.

Once she’d beaten him, she hadn’t really known what to do with him or his comrades. I mean, that meant Team Felt was beaten now, but so what? Was she just supposed to turn them into the police to clear her name? After all that she’d been through to get this far, it seemed a bit anticlimactic. Something about that seemed hollow.

She’d explained this to Slick, once he’d gotten over saying useless fibs like how she’d been duped, and he was never part of Team Felt to begin with. Slick had been understanding. He understood her rage, her desire for revenge, and he was able to point her at the exact reason it all felt so hollow:

She’d never really wanted revenge on Team Felt to begin with. They weren’t the ones who annoyed her. It was that smug jerk in the white suit. _He_ was the one she was really after. If she walked away now, she’d never give that stuck up loser what was coming to him.

By a lucky coincidence, Slick informed her that he and his men had just been heading out to meet with that man when she arrived (He’d said they were going out to take him down, but Vriska knew better). They couldn’t very well go to see him with their pokemon wounded, but they’d be more than happy to give her a ride. She’d beaten them, after all, and it was the least they could do. They’d even share with her all the gear they’d set aside for the trip. Anything for a fellow seeker-after-vengeance.

Vriska was happy to see another pair of goons who knew what was owed to the winner of a pokemon battle. Maybe when this was all over, she’d have to look them up again too. She could always use a good set of underlings, after all.

8 8 8 8 8 8 8 8

“You changed the rules once during our 8attle already,” Vriska gloated, “What do you say I do the same? Hmm? Let’s up the st8kes to a triple 8attle!!!!!!!!” Her three pokemon leered menacingly at his lone shedinja. Swabbie the ambipom couldn’t really contribute, of course, but it was nice for effect. Let the sucker appreciate how badly he’d been beaten.

The man in white didn’t seem impressed. He didn’t seem to be anything, really. He never did. He just stood there for a long moment, then let out an audible sigh.

“Yes, I suppose it was too much to hope that you could conduct yourself like a reasonable, civilized person,” he said. “I have played host to your antics long enough, and while I am nothing if not a truly gracious host, I’m afraid even I have limits to my patience.”

And then he did something he’d never done before: He took off a mitten.

His hand was. . . bizarre. It was no troll hand. It was too pale, too soft: white instead of gray carapace. It also had only three fingers.

Vriska stared at it, tuning out his monologue for a moment, while his fingers removed the other glove, revealing another strange, white, three-fingered hand.

_Wh8t. . . . . . . . ????????_

He began undoing the buttons on his vest. Was he going to strip? What a freak. She gradually became more aware of his rambling.

“. . . and so it behooves me to demonstrate that you are not the only one who came prepared for contingencies. My master would be ill pleased if I were defeated here, so I must return your gesture in kind, meeting cheat with cheat. You have two extra pokemon? Fine.”

He began rising into the air. His weird striptease seem to increase in speed, assisted by unseen powers as various articles of clothing began unfastening on their own and sliding away. A dull blue glow surrounded him. His feet were revealed: strange, elongated feet. They were animal-like, but white and smooth and soft like his hands. His tail. . . _His t8l?!?!?!?!_ Had he always had one of those? Somehow, Vriska thought maybe he always did, and her mind had just been kept from noticing it. It was like a veil falling away. His head was misshapen, with fishlike eyes and a tiny mouth and strange ridges that rose like horns, his chest was exposed, revealing a streak of purple that ran down along his belly, his-

Recognition dawned on Vriska. She hadn’t been speaking to a troll at all. This whole time, this freak, this loser, had just been another pokemon.

A very powerful pokemon.

His eyes flashed as the last of the garments slipped away, folding themselves neatly in the air and stacking themselves away outside the normal bounds of the battlefield. Vriska glared.

_Mewtwo!_

“You have brought two extra pokemon, little troll,” Mewtwo said, in a voice Vriska now recognized was being beamed into her mind by psychic power. “But I have brought _myself_. How well do you think your pathetic little band will do against _the most powerful pokemon of all time_?”

“Eh,” Vriska said, shrugging.

Mewtwo glowed with rage at her casual dismissal.

“Your arrogance will be your undoing! Prepare to face the wrath of-”

“Where’s your tr8ner?”

“I _have_ no trainer!” Mewtwo exclaimed. “My master lies beyond me, through this portal, but I serve him of my own free will. He has already captured the guardian pokemon of time, dialga, and within the mirror world beyond, from which that small baby escaped, he will soon do battle with the guardian pokemon of space. With their combined powers, he will unmake all of reality, reforming it-”

“You don’t have a tr8ner?”

“No!” Mewtwo snapped.

“No8ody? You’re a wild pokemon?”

“I serve my master of my own free will! Together, I will see his dream-”

“That’s all I needed to know,” Vriska said. She reached inside her backpack, digging around through the extra supplies Slick and his team had given her. There was some good stuff in here. She shuffled around, until finally she drew out a pokeball.

It was a purple pokeball, marked with two magenta humps and a single, white letter ‘M’.

8 8 8 8 8 8 8 8

Passing through the portal, Vriska decided that this probably answered a lot of questions. Probably. She hadn’t really been paying enough attention to know what all the questions were, but she was pretty sure they were getting answered. There was stuff here that _fit,_ you know? The kind of nerd who wasted time reading the flavor text on quests instead of rushing straight to the sweet rewards would probably be geeking out right now.

For one thing, there were people here. Weird people, not even trolls. These were people whose skin was pinkish or brownish or so on instead of a proper gray. Hornless trolls with soft exteriors. They were everywhere, and they looked like they totally could be evolved from that weird larva thing she’d had earlier. Or. . . grown up from them or something. Vriska supposed they had clothes on and stuff, so they might not even be pokemon.

The ones here were even wearing Team Felt uniforms and looking surprised to see her. Not that this told her much, since the abra that teleported her out of the prison was wearing Team Felt duds too. Still.

Vriska ignored them. They were obviously not in charge, and she didn’t have the patience for another dozen pokemon battles against random peons right now. The one she wanted was obviously the short green one with the gold tooth at the other end of the room. The one who was laughing maniacally in a very stupid kind of way, holding up a master ball.

The green kid noticed her enter, pointed at her, then continued laughing. Vriska ignored it, walking straight toward him.

It was a long walk across a wide room, and the loser spent the whole time ranting about how she was too late, blah blah, already caught blah blah, power to end the world and recreate blah blah. Vriska didn’t fuss too much over the details. He was waving the master ball around like some kind of talisman, like it held some mysterious power over her, simply by existing.

His head looked kinda’ like a skull, now that she thought about it. Like a duskull’s mask, only green. She wondered if that was some kind of cosmetic thing, or did some people in this place just happen to look that way?

Everyone else in the room was already pretty weird looking, so she guessed anything was possible.

She didn’t ask.

She didn’t listen to him either, nor did she bow down and grovel at the sight of his master ball like he seemed to expect her to.

She didn’t even challenge him to a pokemon battle. She supposed she could have. So he was mister hotshot with his own legendary pokemon. Big deal. She had one of those now too. She figured she could probably take him. She’d used potions and revives and ethers to heal up her team, and she’d taken all of Mewtwo’s pokemon as well, so she was set for a long battle.

Still, she was bored, and this chump didn’t really seem like he was worth the time. He just kept ranting and ranting.

So she walked straight up to him and kicked him in the bulge.

Or, you know, the place where the bulge goes on a troll. She wasn’t sure whatever he was actually _had_ a bulge, or where he kept his bulge if he did, but the kick still seemed to be effective. He shut up immediately and dropped to his knees, gasping in pain.

Then she swiped his master ball and went back the way she had come.

There. Try doing whatever it is without the big fancy pokemon you came for.

Loser.

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8 8 8 8 8 8 8 8

8 8 8 8 8 8 8 8

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8 8 8 8 8 8 8 8

**Epilogue:**

Vriska stood amid the mountaintop ruins, admiring her newly expanded pokemon collection against the light of the fading sunset (still in their various pokeballs, of course. She wasn’t _that_ kind of trainer). Today had definitely been a big win. She’d gotten two legendary pokemon, plus six other, well-trained pokemon that had already been proven in battle against her. Any one of those would have been a satisfying catch, but between Mewtwo, Mewtwo’s team that he no longer needed now that he was her pokemon, and the palkia that she’d snagged from the dorky skull kid. . . well, there really weren’t many trainers left who could stop her now, were there?

Which raised the obvious question of what she was going to do next. The answer to that _seemed_ obvious. Now that she’d stopped the bad guys and taken their pokemon, she could go home, couldn’t she? Maybe she hadn’t really remembered to collect much evidence to clear her name, but she’d caught that mewtwo. That had to be worth something. Mewtwo had been involved in everything somehow, and it could communicate telepathically. As her pokemon, it was bound to obey her orders. She could just walk down to the police station, bring out the mewtwo and order it to tell them everything. In fact, she could order it to tell them _anything_. Any wild, farfetch’d story she wanted could be related by her mewtwo as a solemn witness. She could incriminate or clear anyone she liked.

It wouldn’t take long. By this time tomorrow, she could be back to her old apartment, her old job. She could be kicking back in front of her computer tomorrow night, organizing a new clan in Guilds of Grubcraft, maybe with a different faction. She’d hatch some schemes and rise back to the top, then be PvPing her old clanmates so hard that they’d quit the game and go look for different hobbies. That’d show them. That’d be a nice change of pace. She’d like that.

8ut would she?

Looking back on her old life, Vriska couldn’t help thinking it seemed kinda’ unfulfilling. What was her job really worth, anyway? It had been a steady paycheck, but mostly it had been a way to get firsthand access to all the cheats and tricks to powerlevel her way to greatness in an MMO. What was _that_ worth, really?

Vriska thought of the way she’d felt taking down Team Felt or battling Mewtwo. She’d really _lived_ in those moments. Even just the day-to-day of being on the run from the law had been a proper challenge, moreso than any amount of epic raid battles. If she cleared her name and got her old job back, she’d be giving all that up. Was _that_ what she really wanted?

When she thought about, most of her stuff was probably still busted. Team Felt had smashed it up during their raid. She doubted the police had done much housekeeping in their investigation of the crime scene. And there was no telling what those cops had done when they searched her computer. All her files, all her passwords, all her spreadsheets were on there. Getting back into Guilds of Grubcraft wouldn’t be all too easy without her data. Plus, if her whole apartment wasn’t trashed, then it had been foreclosed on without her being around to pay the rent.

Oh, and her job. . . I mean, technically, there was some issue with some staircase that somebody else ought to have been warned about. That wasn’t her fault, of course, but the officer in the interrogation room seemed like they might be ready to blame her for it. And her boss probably knew about the abuse of her position by now. Yeah, it was pretty good odds that even if her name was cleared, she wouldn’t have a home or a job to go back to.

Oh, and she wasn’t actually sure a pokemon’s testimony was admissible in court anyhow. She might just be walking back to more jail time.

Plus, there were all those lackeys she was thinking about taking on. It would be rude of her to just leave them stranded without some strong central leadership to provide them direction. Those were good, quality underlings. She’d make Jack her second in command, obviously, and put those Team Felt admins in some important places somewhere. Those grunts would get respect and good working conditions. They did good work, and they’d earned that.

She’d need to rebrand the company if she did that, of course. Green felt just really wasn’t her style. She’d need a new look, a new angle. She rather fancied a long blue coat, maybe something nautical themed.

She wondered how hard it would be to steal a boat.

No, Vriska decided, there was really no point in turning herself in and explaining. She didn’t _need_ her name cleared. Life as an outlaw had been her calling from the beginning. She just hadn’t realized it. She hadn’t reached the end of her story here, just finished the first quest arc. It was time to spend her exp and set herself up for bigger and better things.

And then what?

Well, then she was going to catch some pokemon.

All of the pokemon, in fact.

_A_ _aaaaaaa_ _ll of them!!!!!!!!_

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is the end of the tale, but not the end of Vriska's adventurers. Unfortunately, this is as far as my pen takes me. The story I came to tell is done, and I'm ready to move on to other things. It's been fun, and Vriska's still up for more, but whatever happens to Vriska from here on out will have reside in your own imagination (or your own fanfics, if that's your fancy). Thanks for reading, and I hope you enjoyed the adventure!


End file.
